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Is Turkey the blueprint for Mexico?

 Over the past two decades, Turkey has been the "fly in the ointment" and has played a hard game against the West but also the Middle East.  Over the past year, the country has made some new friends from old enemies; starting with Israel and now Saudi Arabia.  The reason appears to be Erdogan's self-interest.  There will be an election in 2023 and Erdogan is in trouble -- the opposition is united, the country is broke and inflation (at 80%) is out of control.  

AMLO's government has followed a similar pattern, although its trajectory has been shorter than that of Turkey, mainly because the country was also poorly run before AMLO took power -- he just compounded the problems.  The Mexican people are now finding out that AMLO has been supporting Cuba and Venezuela on the quiet with food and energy exports.  

Now, Mexican inflation is rampant, the coffers are empty and AMLO should soon be looking for friends out of old enemies.  Over the past two weeks, AMLO has antagonized two groups he can ill afford to make into enemies; public sector doctors and teachers.  Over the past two weeks, AMLO has cut both sector's budgets by 25% -- over the past three years both sectors have seen their allocation in new budgets to be zero, with the understanding that they would be protected since they are core supporters of Morena (AMLO's party), but these announced massive cuts can only be executed by two ways: cut in salaries and redundancies.  AMLO is starting to hurt his most ardent followers.

Already the murder rate is out of control and is higher than it has ever been, the US government now suggests that Americans limit their travel because it's too dangerous.  Out of three signature projects, two are in deep trouble with cost overruns that have their own cost overruns.  The Maya train, if its every completed, is estimated to cost US$ 22 billion it was supposed to cost US$ 6 billion and the new refinery in dos Bocas will cost north of US$ 18 billion when it was supposed to cost less than US$ 6 billion (all figures from FONATUR part of the Mexican government).  AMLO has been using PEMEX and CFE as social engineering instruments, but not allowing these two companies to be compensated for their cost of production; PEMEX's payment delinquency which was always bad (even under other administrations) is now "biblical" where suppliers are waiting for years before receiving payments, maintenance has been delayed on most of PEMEX's offshore drilling & production rigs.  CFE has seen its energy costs grow by nearly 50% whereas energy prices to the consumers have only risen by 6%.  The balance has been increased borrowings by CFE and like Pemex further extension of payment terms -- something it never did in the past, despite its shaky finance.

Since AMLO cannot run again as president, he should want to ensure his legacy, and it would seem that the best way possible would be to transform old enemies into friends -- the question is will he have the sense of preservation that Erdogan has or will he remain a 1960s state corporatist, that sees all bad news as fake news?  

My bet is that AMLO is unable to see the scope of problems, and will keep his head deeply buried in the sand of indifference to the real hardship faced by his people which has been the hallmark of his presidency.

 


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