The Nervous One

Morning briefings fiercely criticizes U.S. intelligence agencies, but treats capos with respect.

For the past 26 days the president has been seen as nervous. Since Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada was arrested, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has been noticeably restless: his statements on the matter are contradictory, he hasn’t been able to inform what happened, he asks for explanations from the U.S. government but the latter doesn’t give them, and he went to the extreme of silencing his Secretary of Public Security -future Secretary of the Interior-, Rosa Icela Rodriguez, when she was about to share more information.

It’s clear that the case makes the president nervous. It’s clear that what Mayo Zambada may say in the U.S. courts has him that way. And he already had his first “taste”: El Mayo unsettled the governor of Sinaloa, the Morenista Rubén Rocha Moya, and the outgoing president and the incoming president had to come to the rescue to put out a fire that is still burning. What will continue to emerge from Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada’s testimony? Will he confess to meetings with a Morenista leader in Colima? Will he talk about being introduced to a high-ranking official in Mazatlán? Will he talk about going to a meal in Culiacán with another powerful member of the cabinet? Will he spill the beans on his inner circle? Will he reveal money deliveries to campaigns?

The problem for the president is that if El Mayo focuses its batteries against him and his movement, he will have little defense. The narrative sinks him. First, because the government knew where El Mayo was and never stopped him. Second, because they established a political and government alliance with the kingpin. Third, because the president has been using statements from drug traffickers for the entire six-year term, which brought García Luna down (no way he will now say that how can he believe the testimony of a criminal). Fourth, because AMLO has explicitly said that his government doesn’t seek to arrest the big drug lords. Fifth, because in the morning briefings he refers to the drug lords with the respect he only gives to his allies. Sixth, because the international press has spread the version that his political movement has been financed with drug money. And seventh, because all this is part of the “hugs not bullets” policy that closes the circle that gives credibility to the existence of a crime-government pact.

The president has tried to hide the gibberish that the arrest of El Mayo has put him in by resorting to a 1970’s anti-Yankee discourse. If the United States carried out a government anti-drug operation on Mexican soil without the government’s authorization (which would be a serious violation of sovereignty), Mexico has not presented any proof. Instead, what is palpable is that the López Obrador government has closed the doors of cooperation to U.S. intelligence agencies while opening them to the cartels. In the morning, these agencies are fiercely criticized, but the capos are treated with respect. And this equation is unacceptable for the United States because the issue of fentanyl, which arrives from Mexico and kills 100,000 young Americans every year, has become electorally explosive. The rest are consequences.

Source: El Universal