Politics: Seeds of a potential governability crisis
Could Mexico be teetering on the verge of a governance crisis? President Andrés Manuel Lopez Obrador’s administration is now faced with a three-pronged crisis, a combination strikingly reminiscent of when spiraling criminal violence under the administration of President Felipe Calderón eventually coincided in 2009 with both a global recession, and the H1N1 influenza epidemic.
The current scenario involves an economic slowdown and recession that could deepen significantly with the emergence of the global coronavirus pandemic, a major domestic health-care crisis with the initial spread of Covid-19 made more ominous by an institutional and political inability to properly respond, and an ongoing breakdown of public security epitomized by historical homicide levels. But this time around, a severe degree of government incompetence in the design and implementation of public policies is further aggravating problems on all three fronts, and this may well lead to a fourth problem: a crisis of governability.
Much depends on the evolution of the pandemic and the government’s response. Thus far the picture is not encouraging. The president has constantly downplayed the effect of Covid-19 and failed to take the bold steps needed to contain the spread that virtually every other country has been adopting. A likely mushrooming of the outbreak could severely tax the country’s already problem-ridden health-care system, to say nothing of its more prolonged effects on the economy as a whole. Other officials appear to be trying to develop a serious response, but their efforts are constantly undermined by the president himself.
Companies and local and state governments have already begun to take the lead in the face of widely perceived federal government inaction. If the virus follows the trends set in Spain and Italy, it could spell big trouble for AMLO’s government on several fronts.
The ineffectual response to all of these problems feeds the growing perception that AMLO’s personalization of decision-making and all aspects of governing has become increasingly damaging given his stubborn resistance to correct his own mistakes. The incapacity to achieve any noticeable progress in public security, with homicides and femicide rates unabated, and a seeming presidential indifference to the plight of the victims, adds another dimension to the political crisis.
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