Redesigning Latin American presidentialism
Diego Martín Velázquez Caballero
The crises of the presidential systems in Latin America begin to break, as Juan Linz exposed, the weak delegative democracies of the subcontinent. And, in a particular way, in Mexico every time you can see a polarization of cliques that seem to seek the collapse of the political system.
The truth is that, outside of the United States of America, presidentialism is the most dangerous form of government to consolidate a democracy and constitutes the sure path to failure. For this reason, Latin American presidents -and the case of Mexico is unique- require institutional modifications that regulate the mechanisms and incentives of the presidential model and adapt it to their own contexts.
Analysts and academics who point out the need for US dynamics in Latin American presidentialism are flatly lying. In Mexico there is a whole legal and scientific justification to show that only with the supremacy of the Executive Branch, more or less, presidentialism works in an uneven way. To expose something else is to justify the coup or the civil war.
Governments in Mexico that have implemented crucial projects for the transformation of the country need decrees and, on occasions, frank contempt for the division of powers. Mexico is not the United States. Mexico has not been a liberal capitalist democracy, not even a polyarchy but just a failed delegative democracy where previous presidents to the López Obrador case, have governed with their backs to the constitution but with the permission of the corrupting patrimonialism that Mexican public officials and particularly to businessmen. Where were the great critics of AMLO and his peculiar style of governing when before they justified all the violations, extortions and scandals of the Mexican constitution?
It is only enough to compare the six-year term of López Obrador with that of Enrique Peña Nieto to find out who has betrayed Mexico. However, what is notable does not consist in the six-year witch hunts but in reformulating the presidential model and adapting it to our conditions and historical speed.
The emphasis on the context makes us consistent and our country is not the American Union, nor France or England. Mexico requires many political, economic and social transformations that inaugurate an institutionalization process so that the country does not invent itself every six years. Mexico needs a Charles de Gaulle to invent the 5th Republic because the Fourth does not convince the factions and colonialist cliques.