It is no exaggeration to say that big decisions have big consequences. The ethics of the politician – as Max Weber said – not only has to do with his conviction or his ultimate goals, but also with ensuring that he is responsible for his actions.
When it comes to security policy in Mexico, Felipe Calderón surely thought he was doing the right thing with his confrontation strategy towards organized crime gangs associated with drug trafficking.
There seems to be a consensus that their strategy failed, although there is a difference of opinion about the reasons for the shipwreck.
To the extent that it can be said that the Peña Nieto government continued the plans of its predecessor in terms of security, we could agree that the policy carried out during two six-year terms was not fruitful.
Without a doubt, candidate López Obrador offered to implement a series of measures different from those of the two previous presidents, hoping to be more successful than them.
More than seven years after that turn of the screw, the results have been far from what was expected. It is now possible to say that like Calderón and Peña Nieto, the López Obrador-Sheinbaum Pardo duet has failed.
In one case or another it is regrettable that this was the case, since the suffering of millions of citizens is a gigantic and immeasurable cost.
Now, both Calderón and Peña Nieto are already out of power, for better or worse. Today the one who governs is Claudia Sheinbaum who represents – according to her own sayings – the Worker movement.
The recent murder of the mayor of Uruapan, Carlos Manzo, has been both shocking and sad. The demand for justice to be done in his case is added to those previously made before a long line of victims. Instead of taking responsibility for this, the President decided to resort to flight forward and blame them on a president who has not been in power for almost three decades.
By doing this, citizens are being told that they are in a situation of moral risk, which in English is known as moral hazard. A situation in which someone is dependent on a counterparty who can act irresponsibly without bearing the costs.
Of course, the proposition of liberal democracy consists precisely in never putting the population in a condition of moral risk. On the contrary, in a truly democratic regime the accountability of governments to citizens is fundamental and necessary.
But the current rulers would make a serious mistake in thinking that citizens have given them a blank check to act irresponsibly. Lincoln said it immortally: you can fool everyone for a while. Some can be fooled all the time. But you can’t fool everyone all the time.