Perhaps one of the first things AMLO has learned is that getting into government is not having power. It was won on July 1, 2018 for a lifelong struggle in defense of the social majorities, but the year since December 1, 2018 has served to teach that the government is only one part of a beast called the State, and that the political and economic elites that governed Mexico for years have lost political power, but continue to control a part of the country’s economy, while entrenching themselves in media and judicial power.

But despite the difficulties, it is undeniable that the country has changed. The image of AMLO a year ago while he was heading to the inauguration in his white Jetta, when a cyclist beside him says “You do not have the right to fail us”, is the image of a country full of hope, but above all, tremendously politicized.

There is hope, because AMLO has been able to channel the discontent with the neoliberal model, incapable of guaranteeing dignified living conditions for a majority of the population; and politicization, because he has been able to explain that in order to leave this neoliberal model behind, it is necessary to build a new one, post-neoliberal, attacking at the root one of the main evils of the State: corruption.

1 year of government, 12 months of pending tasks

AMLO said it in the Zócalo: “How much time will we need to consolidate the transformation? I think that one more year; that is to say, in December 2020 the foundations for the construction of a new homeland will be established. By then, under any circumstances, it will be practically impossible to return to the era of opprobrium that the neoliberal or neoporphirist period meant”.

It is clear that the symbolic has been fundamental in the first year of government, from the disappearance of the Presidential General Staff to the opening to the public of Los Pinos, passing through AMLO’s trips in commercial airplanes.

But, although the symbolic is fundamental for the dispute of post-neoliberal cultural hegemony, it is in two material and concrete questions where the fourth transformation will be measured whether it is consolidated or not:

Firstly, the reduction of poverty and inequality. In a country where 41% of the population lives in poverty, and 16% more in extreme poverty, the implementation of a process of redistribution through different social programs is a clear commitment to reduce these levels of poverty. If, in addition to this redistribution, which will allow consumption and internal demand to be stimulated in order to generate growth (and this is Keynes, not Marx), there is also a commitment to (re)industrialisation (with the recovery of Pemex at the head) and major infrastructure works, such as the Mayan Train, the social indicators (which do not always go hand in hand with the economic ones) should improve.

Secondly, the commitment to a new security strategy should also bear fruit in the medium term. There is a clear commitment to implement social programs among the population and the National Guard in the territory to recover national sovereignty. And although it is too soon to say, and most of the media will be bombarding us at the end of 2019, pointing out that the number of deaths due to violence is the highest in history, the reality is that the increase with respect to 2018 is only 2%, which indicates a stabilization, while the year-on-year growth during the two previous six-year periods was 25-30%. If we achieve a reduction in the number of deaths by 2020, however small this percentage may be, we will begin to consolidate the strategic shift.

12 months of government, 5 years of challenges ahead

And if the reduction of poverty, inequality and violence are the main indicators to evaluate the fourth transformation in the medium term, there are 5 indicators that will allow us to evaluate the success or failure of López Obrador’s government in the remaining 5 years of his term.

In the first place, it is urgent and necessary to build a party that pushes to the left a government that by inertia will always tend to the center. Above all, because in 2021 AMLO will not be on the ballot and a clear majority is needed if constitutional reforms are to be made.

Likewise, the politicization of society is essential. What happened in Bolivia is the best example of how the inclusion and redistribution of wealth are useless if you create a depoliticized middle class of consumers. Or, more accurately, politicized by the media. The millions of people who are going to see their material living conditions improved should know that this is due to specific social and economic policies of the López Obrador government.

All of this must be accompanied by measures that go beyond the symbolic. It is urgent and necessary that those responsible for the looting of the country in previous six-year periods be tried and imprisoned. Considering AMLO’s tactical decision of not wanting to prosecute the presidents so as not to open new battle fronts, structural corruption cannot remain in impunity.

And looting has only been possible through the doctrine of shock against the population, through the impulse of a criminal economy protected by narco-politics, which has transformed Mexico into a cemetery, or worse yet, into a large mass grave. Human rights policy, justice in cases like Ayotzinapa’s, or putting all the resources of the State to confront the tragedy of the disappeared, will be another of the pillars by which to measure the success or failure of the fourth transformation.

And finally, since people do not subsist on ideology, the redistribution of wealth and the country’s growth, especially in a context of global recession like the one we are entering, must be accompanied by fiscal reform as the only way to sustain the transformation process. More will have to be paid by those who have the most as a way of structurally improving a G-20 country that has some of the lowest poverty and inequality rates in the OECD.

If all of the above is faced with courage, the entire lifelong struggle of Andrés Manuel López Obrador, and millions of others, will have served to leave Mexico’s radical transformation as the legacy of this six-year period.

Translation by Internationalist 360º