Two years ago, nearly 36 million Mexican men and women cast their votes to express their hope, trust, and decision to continue advancing on the path of the Transformation initiated by President Andrés Manuel López Obrador.
With that backing, I assumed the honor and enormous responsibility of leading the continuity of the Fourth Transformation of Public Life. This mandate, born from the popular will, stems from the conviction of millions of Mexicans who clearly stated that “the past of privileges, corruption, decadence, and abandonment of the homeland and the people must not return.”
That day also marked an event that will remain engraved forever in our nation’s memory: for the very first time, a woman reached the Presidency of the Republic. This is a victory for the women of Mexico, but, above all, the victory of a people who decided to continue making history.
Two years after that magnificent and historic triumph of the people, I appear once again to render accounts, just as we have always done: facing the people and in the public square.
I warmly greet everyone joining us from the 30 states of the Republic and Mexico City:
In the case of Coahuila, due to ongoing elections, the decision was made not to present this report in a public square.
However, I greet Aguascalientes, Baja California, Baja California Sur, Campeche, right here in Mexico City, Colima, Chiapas, Chihuahua, Durango, Guanajuato, Guerrero, Hidalgo, Jalisco, the State of Mexico, Michoacán, Morelos, Nayarit, Nuevo León, Oaxaca, Puebla, Querétaro, Quintana Roo, San Luis Potosí, Sinaloa, Sonora, Tabasco, Tamaulipas, Tlaxcala, Veracruz, Yucatán, and Zacatecas.
Today, I will share with you a summary of the main achievements reached during these 20 months of government. I ask for a little bit of your patience.
Government Actions and Accountability
We have conducted the government with honesty because we understand that public money belongs to the people and is not the private estate of the rulers.
- The salaries of the highest-level public servants have not increased.
- We reduced current expenditure by 10 percent.
- We increased tax collection by 4.8 percent in real terms without raising taxes.
- I travel across the country three days a week to render accounts, listen, and directly attend to the people.
- We have held 409 “People’s Morning Press Conferences” (Mañaneras del Pueblo) to provide transparent information.
- We have not acquired luxury vehicles or eccentricities for the government.
Every public servant has the duty to act with probity and decency. Here, there is no room for corruption, privileges, or the excesses that offended the people of Mexico for decades.
Let us remember that in the past, while millions of Mexicans fought to get ahead, those officials traveled in luxury presidential planes, surrounded themselves with privileges and eccentricities, relied on security apparatuses that kept them distant from the people, and lived locked away in Los Pinos, separated from the national reality.
We do exactly the opposite: we walk with the people, we listen to the people, we render accounts to the people, and we govern by obeying the people. We did not enter government to serve ourselves; we came to put power at the service of the people and the nation. Millionaire pensions, predatory contracts, offensive waste, and a government dedicated to managing privileges are a thing of the past.
Resources are sacred because they belong to the people, and they return to them transformed into Welfare Programs, schools, hospitals, roads, housing, infrastructure, and public works. This is the essence of the Transformation: ending a regime that governed for the elites and the oligarchy, and consolidating a government of the people.
No matter how much our adversaries long for the times of privilege, those times will not return. I say this with pride: today, Mexico has an honest, close government committed to the well-being and dignity of its people. Furthermore, in contrast to the neoliberal period, democracy and freedoms are actively practiced.
Let us not forget that during Fox’s six-year term, the cruel repression of the residents of San Salvador Atenco occurred, alongside the brutal repression of teachers in Oaxaca. As if that were not enough, Fox spearheaded the impeachment (desafuero) process against Andrés Manuel López Obrador. His crowning achievement was the 2006 electoral fraud that brought the spurious Felipe Calderón to the presidency, filling the country with death and blood through a failed war on drugs, where an alliance with a drug cartel was thoroughly proven. That was a narco-government.
Carlos Monsiváis used to say that “the true doctrine of conservatism is hypocrisy.” And indeed, they are hypocrites.
Neoliberal History and International Relations
We must never forget that there were 36 years of neoliberal governments that surrendered the wealth of the people and the nation to a select few. Economic policy was dictated from abroad. Furthermore, they permitted the interference of the United States government in a significant portion of Mexico’s public life decisions.
Let us remember, for example, that in Labastida’s memoirs, it is confessed that Ernesto Zedillo negotiated a deal in the United States for the PRI to exit and the PAN to assume the presidency, in exchange for a 40-billion-dollar loan to address the crisis they themselves provoked.
Under Calderón, the war against drugs was planned from abroad, and U.S. agencies had an open door, planning and operating within our territory. Let us not forget the pact surrounding the Fast and Furious operation, which allowed the entry of thousands of high-powered weapons under the pretext of locating criminal groups, resulting in the loss of both American and Mexican lives.
Times have changed. In Mexico, the people govern
Source: jornada
