Politics: 4T Agenda, past, present and Future

MEXICO - Report 18 Jan 2021 by Guillermo Valdes and Francisco González

President López Obrador made a public commitment last September to pass by the end of 2020 all of the essential constitutional reforms and legislative bills comprising the basic structure of what he has long promised will be the fourth historical transformation of Mexico. But although he has taken advantage of the strong support he enjoys in Congress to make numerous changes to the Constitution and pass considerable legislation, last fall he clearly failed to make good on his promise.

Many key items in the legislative agenda of his Morena party for the September-December session were never even brought up for discussion or only managed to pass a single chamber. Caucus leaders became preoccupied in the final weeks with a flurry of totally unexpected bills in response to recent developments, such as changes to the National Security Law aimed at imposing very strict rules on the activities of US DEA agents on Mexican soil in the wake of the US government’s decision last September fall to arrest the country’s former head of the Armed Forces, and an effort to force the country’s central bank to acquire dollar bills from potentially illicit sources.

This continuing scattershot approach on the part of the governing camp betrays a deeper problem with AMLO’s governing project. Since he has never produced a document that explicitly and comprehensively explains the context and reach of the changes the 4T would imply, it is impossible to know just how far it has advanced with the legal changes made to date. In many respects he seems to be making it up as he goes along. But with no guarantee that he will continue to enjoy a majority in Congress following this June’s midterm elections, the final session of the current legislature that gets underway February 1 could prove decisive for the viability and longevity of his somewhat inscrutable project. His agenda for the upcoming session of Congress appears designed primarily to radicalize the economy and strengthen Morena’s hand not only in the upcoming elections but also in the next presidential contest in 2024.

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