Politics: Covid and the breakdown of federalism
The Covid-19 epidemic has emerged as the latest battle line pitting numerous state governors and municipal governments against President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, one that is likely to have lasting political implications in addition to potentially magnifying the human tragedy posed by the pandemic. Preparing hospitals to attend to the growing number of cases has been one of the most contentious and serious problems, with daily news reports of doctors, nurses and other hospital personnel staging protests for their lack of protective gear. More than 300 medical professionals at social security (IMSS) hospitals have contracted the virus and several have died.
From the start of his administration AMLO put state governors on notice by assigning representatives to each state to tightly control all federal discretionary transfers for education, health, social infrastructure and many other types of subsidies and revenue sharing. The federal government’s mid-January decision to cancel the Seguro Popular health insurance program, through which most state governments were managing most of their health budgets, was another major blow, and one very poorly timed, coming less than two months before a global pandemic would reach the country.
But Covid-19 has brought a new twist on a dysfunctional federalism. A number of governors are increasingly dubious about the infection/fatality rates and transmission projection numbers, and frustrated by the absence of a serious economic mitigation effort. In place of coordination, the federal government appears to have limited itself largely to drawing up general suggestions for epidemic response while leaving it up to heads of state governments to interpret and adapt them as they see fit. More troublesome is that they report having been deprived of even the most basic funding and supplies necessary to mount an emergency medical response, a problem that has been playing out dramatically in Tijuana, one of the hardest hit areas, sparking harsh criticism from the state governor, a member of AMLO’s own party.
No matter how this health and economic crisis plays out, the president continues to make powerful enemies, including some popular state governors with political calculations and ambitions of their own ahead of the 2021 midterms and the 2024 presidential race.
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