Politicians Who Don’t Understand And Insult, Are Called Neoliberal By Another, Says Ernesto Zedillo.

Mica for cartelinsider.com

Ernesto Zedillo Ponce de León – who governed Mexico from December 1st, 1994 to November 30th, 2000 – commented on January 24th, 2024, that there was a great concern about economic and political issues, so there should be considerably more reflection and not simply make reference to large labels.

“Every time a politician doesn’t understand something, they want to insult someone by calling them a ‘neoliberal.’ That doesn’t affect me, because since I was a child I declared myself a classical, traditional, and unfortunately, I no longer have anything ‘neo.’ For example, nowadays, the market economy, or capitalism, or neoliberalism, which still hasn’t been fully explained, is a very popular term,” the former national leader stated.

“During his participation in an event organized by the investment bank Grupo Financiero Actinver, held in Mexico City, Zedillo Ponce de León stated that in Latin America and Mexico, spaces for populism had opened up. He further explained that this type of leadership claimed to promote democracy, but in practice sought to undermine it.”

“In the past, some were able to seize power with the military. What has happened is that they have learned how the system works, and they like democracy until they access power and once they have done so, they seek to erode democracy. It is a very serious problem, because the way to access democracy is through deception, demagoguery and populism,” emphasized the former president.

The former national leader emphasized that “populism” sought to erode democratic foundations. In addition, he detailed that another mechanism of populist governments was to have influence in other branches of power.

“The failures of some past policies have resulted in the opening of spaces for populism to be reborn in some of our countries […] We see countries in which political leadership came to power through democracy, and yet every day they claim that the country is living in democracy, but at the same time, they work daily to undermine its foundations. They do so by seeking to eliminate the checks and balances of public power, weakening autonomous organisms with numerous procedures,” said Zedillo Ponce de León.

“I believe that the greatest challenge is to protect democracy, if we protect democracy, if we prevent this democratic regression that we are seeing in some countries and heal the wounds that have been caused, then I am optimistic,” said the former national leader, which earned him applause from the attendees.”

“[Populist governments] seek to have a submissive Congress, as majority as possible, and when any of the other powers of the State tries to fulfill its constitutional duties, they dedicate themselves to finding a way for that power to be composed of individuals who will adhere not to what the Constitution says, but to what the sovereign wants and desires […] Is it truly a democracy when checks and balances are weakened, when the legitimacy of the judicial power is questioned, when other organs of the State are attacked and destroyed?” added Zedillo Ponce de Leon.

On Tuesday, January 23rd, 2024, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who announced that his predecessor would be in Mexico, asked him three questions, one about the Bank Protection Fund for Savings (FOBAPROA) – created in 1990 during the administration of Carlos Salinas de Gortari to transfer private debt from banks to the public sphere – another about pension system reforms, and a third about the railroad system.

The FOBAPROA emerged as a response to face possible financial crises and the assumption that they would jeopardize the liquidity of banks. Thus, in case of an emergency, said Fund would be used to buy the banks’ debts and provide them with capital.

“Now that Zedillo is coming, I would like to ask him three questions: first, why did he convert the private debts of a few into public debt? The FOBAPROA, because they bring him as an exhibitor, like [José María] Aznar [López] from Spain, to answer that,” requested the politician from Tabasco.

“The second thing I answer is why did you send a pension reform to Congress where workers will not receive even 50 percent of their salary upon retirement? What led you to harm workers? Why did you do it? Did you not know what that pension reform would mean?” asked the national leader.

“Did they calculate wrong? The financial crisis? That would be the second one to explain. A third one is why during his government the minimum wage didn’t increase, instead it reduced the purchasing power of the salary. I said three, but I have many more,” questioned the Head of the Federal Executive, who also commented that this was a good moment for Zedillo Ponce de León to explain why he ended passenger transportation by rail.”

“Why did the passenger trains disappear and why did the ex-president go to work as an advisor for the American company that took over the national railways?” asked López Obrador, in regards to the fact that the former president was in the board of directors for Union Pacific, the operator of FERROMEX, and the latter company emerged from the privatization of the Mexican National Railways.”

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Mica

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