The 49th edition of the Catholic Citizenship and Social Analysis Observatory issues a resounding warning: in Mexico, a large political, corrupt, and criminal sect has taken hold, storming the State and dismantling the institutions that for decades bolstered the country’s republican organization.
Under the title Social and Political Institutions of Mexico Today, the document presents an unambiguous diagnosis. The current “social question” is reduced to a historical dilemma: either plural democracy based on laws and institutions prevails, or despotic autocracy is imposed. One hundred years after Plutarco Elías Calles proclaimed the transition from a “one-man country” to a “nation of institutions and laws,” the fourth-term regime represents, according to the Observatory, the exact antithesis of that republican ideal.
The bulletin identifies four major pillars on which the new regime is based. First, the systematic destruction of republican institutions, Congress has been monopolized by populism led by patriarchs and caciques; the Judicial Power has been disfigured and colonized by unconditional supporters of former President López Obrador; the federal Executive operates under electoral pacts with the Sinaloa and Jalisco Nueva Generación cartels; autonomous institutions that guaranteed economic competition have been dismantled, and bodies such as the Attorney General’s Office, the Superior Audit Office, the National Human Rights Commission, and the National Electoral Institute have lost their independence. In all cases, the institutional order has been nullified by subjecting political life to illegality.
Second, patrimonialist corruption the most scandalous in recent history, starring López Obrador’s sons and brothers, close collaborators, Morena governors and legislators, and sectors of the army and navy. The so-called “fiscal huachicol” would amount to 600 billion pesos, according to official figures later discredited.
The third pillar is the modern re-edition of the Roman formula of “panem et circenses,” direct handouts to the population are combined with the demagoguery of the morning conferences to maintain social control.
The fourth pillar is the consolidation of a narco-state. Explicit alliances between the ruling elite and organized crime have turned into a system what was previously a dangerous trend. Mexico, the analysis concludes, is today a narco-state.
The text is especially incisive in characterizing Morena, which behaves like a sect with its maximum leader López Obrador who has established himself as an absolute moral authority. That sect, corrupt, criminal, and with characteristics of a maximato, has managed to subject political life to illegality and impose impunity as the norm.
The Observatory does not limit itself to denouncing. It points out the paralysis of the historical actors of Mexican democracy, civil organizations, opposition parties, business organizations, free unions, academia, media, and the Catholic Church hierarchy itself. All these forces appear scattered and with a serious and disturbing paralysis, except for the resistance of some media harassed by power.
Faced with this panorama, the report proposes concrete lines of citizen action. First, recognize and defend the institutions of the Mexican State as a citizen conquest, not as the property of rulers or caciques. Second, value the good and excellent aspects that those institutions had and demand their respect, reorganization, and professionalism as a condition for achieving the national common good. Finally, encourage all social sectors to give their best effort in organization and action to build a country of solid institutions.
The report closes with an urgent call: citizenship, and not politicians, must decide whether to continue supporting the regime or rebuild the democratic path. The key to everything lies in the social construction of a conscious and protagonist citizenship. It is a call to action before the caciquil autocracy becomes irreversibly entrenched in national life.
The full report can be read here: