Puebla: Tear my life!
By Diego Martín Velázquez Caballero
Various signs mark the Puebla election in 2018. First, the accounts do not fit; we find a profound distortion between the surveys for the presidency of the republic and those that refer to the governorship in Puebla. The preferences for AMLO in our locality coincide with the broad advantage of MORENA with respect to its closest competitors; however, if the preferences for Luis Miguel Barbosa are observed, there is the appearance of a disadvantage compared to the wife of Rafael Moreno Valle, official candidate of a diverse coalition.
In the second place, it is difficult to understand the perverse game that the morenovallismo disposed in its factions within the state. In Puebla and its municipalities there is extreme competition in the same Morenovallista cliques that are forced to get as many votes as possible for Martha Ericka Alonso; but also, forced to tear themselves apart -to get the municipal presidency. Similar experiences are experienced by some candidates for local and federal deputies.
Puebla is a living example of the place that the failure of politics can reach. The transfuguism that began in the era of Manuel Bartlett Díaz and generated the emigration of many PRI cadres to other political institutes, has degenerated into a partidocracy and de-institutionalization of participation and public administration. Pragmatic multi-party alliances generated an apocalyptic principality. These partisan migrations were interpreted, by some optimists, as the process towards a two-party system; However, pessimism pointed out that this political transvestism indicated the path towards the proliferation of leaderships as they lived in the country during the first years of the regime of the Mexican Revolution.
The Official Party had to "gather" approximately three thousand, among the more than ten thousand, political fractions that were fighting to build a new regime. Over time, the State Party inaugurated a political pact for the circulation of elites. At the end of the hegemonic period of the Revolutionary Family, Mexico found itself without parties, neither political class, nor State. However, the transition to democracy was a fine step for PRIs of all political parties to govern.
The problem is not the PRI as a political institute, the disease is a peculiar style of political leadership in the Mexican political culture: the caciquismo. The Cacique is the true dinosaur of the political transition in Mexico. It can be considered a generous style of patrimonialism; However, it constitutes a hindrance that does not allow the construction of political institutions and, much less, the arrival of liberal democracy.
Puebla allowed the architecture of one of the longest-lived and shameful chiefdoms in the history of Mexico: the avilacamachismo. The conservative nature of the entity did not allow the revolutionary, social and liberal spirit to settle in their territories. The "May 5" is only a mythologema without any consequence, it is more significant the contribution to found "El Yunque", point of reference of the Ibero-American extreme right. Conservatism and caciquism are the lanes through which local history has been conducted and manifested.
A crime poet has always pointed out to me that writers are more authentic and successful in explaining Puebla politics than many social scientists. He is absolutely right. It is enough a good novel -of the several that exist- as an aleph, to see the past, the present and the future of our society. The Pact of Honor and Justice has not moved a bit since the time of Maximinus, the subscribers remain encumbrados and cohesive. There are the same characters, playing the role that corresponds to them: Gunmen disguised as Businessmen and Bankers, Whiskers who play politicians, Foreigners Mafiosi, Bishops who only follow the Gospel of Power, a people who can not find a way to defend themselves and bastardy as a right of blood.
Puebla has always lived in the shadow of Avilacamachismo, it seems unlikely that this will change. The cacique structure survived thanks to the alternation, as understood by those who read the novels; the political scientists were confused and their error deepened the backwardness and injustice in Puebla. The population of Puebla is in the past, the social and economic indicators, the buoyant corruption, the insecurity and the fear let it see. Nor Maximino achieved a context so favorable to Satrapy.
The avilacamachismo prevented that the great social transformations of the Mexican revolution arrived in Puebla, the neoavilacamachismo is doing everything possible to isolate the entity. I hope that the next president of the republic acts as Adolfo Ruiz Cortines and imposes order; even if it comes from the center. It will be necessary to read novels to sharpen the political analysis and stop believing the fantasies of the extreme right: Martha Ericka is not Catalina, much less Carmen Serdán, is the Diaz Ordaz of Maximino Ávila Camacho, an ugly caricature of an oligarchy that will transform it into a monster, as happened with the native of Chalchicomula.
