Mexican “I am 132” (yosoy132) youth uprising against the capitalist candidates – Eyewitness account

On 23rd of March 2012, ‘Fundacion MEPI’, a NGO that dubs itself as a ‘regional investigative journalism project based in Mexico’ published a report on the participation of youth in the upcoming presidential elections on July 1. Reporting that there will be the decisive number of 24 million voters between the ages of 18 and 29, it however portrayed its own grim outlook on youth, claiming that most of them are not interested in the elections and are not participating. It suggested some gimmick solutions, such as the presidential candidates getting more active on Facebook and Twitter!

This argument of youth apathy and disinterest in politics is repeated in many countries and there is, of course, some truth to it. Many young people, and in fact large sections of working people in general, are sick and tired of the cynical nature of electoral politics. When candidates of the left and traditional organizations of the working class fail to offer a clear-cut Socialist solution to the problems engendered by the capitalist system, it is no wonder that they fail to excite the youth and get them engaged… even at this exciting times of ours, where massive revolutionary movements and mobilizations in almost every corner of the globe are weekly news.

As I arrived in Mexico on May 2nd, it seemed that this mood of disinterest in the elections prevailed within many sections of workers and youth. The polls showed the candidate of the left, Lopez Obrador (AMLO), at a distant third and even many of his ardent supporters were saying they had no hope for an Obrador win or for a repeat of the fantastic 2006 movement against electoral fraud that challenged the establishment.

It was, however, almost overnight that something changed. As I write these lines, about a fortnight later, there are almost daily massive demonstrations of thousands of youth and students against the candidates of the bourgeoisie. The ‘polls’ are being questioned, even by bourgeois ‘experts’. Domestic and international media are talking about a Mexican ‘spring’ (or a ‘hot summer’), styled after the massive uprisings in the Arab World and indignados in Spain. ٍPeople are everywhere eagerly discussing the elections. Perhaps much more than an enthusiastic endorsement of AMLO, we see a surge of hatred for the supposed front-runner Peña Nieto and the current government of the PAN. What happened that led to this change in mood? And why was it that none of the respected opinions of the establishment could predict such a sudden outburst of energy and mobilization against the capitalist candidates by the supposedly apathetic youth?

Before answering this question we should have a brief look at the political landscape of Mexico on the eve of the elections.

Who is the face of change?

It was always clear that there is a lot at stake in the General and Presidential Elections coming up on July 1. On this day people will chose a new President for the Republic and also deputies to both chambers of the Mexican Parliament (Chamber of Deputies and the Senate.) In addition, the Federal District (Mexico City) will elect a new Head of Government and Legislative Assembly (approximately equivalent to a Mayor and city council) and gubernatorial elections will be held in Guanajuato, Jalisco and Morelos (plus some municipal and local congressional elections.)

The most important position is, obviously, that of the President and as people generally vote along Party lines, winning one will probably be concurrent with winning others.

We are going to the polls as the currently ruling National Action Party (PAN) is embroiled in a deep crisis due to the escalating Drug War that has infected the country like a virus and the general worsening of people’s economic conditions. It will have a tough time asking for one more term after it has run the country disastrously  since 2000. The other major bourgeois Party, misnamed Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), is one that ruled Mexico for seven decades after the revolution of 1910-20. It once used to be a corporatist party, including trade unions and businesses in the state structure while stifling any space for democracy in the unions and society and rigging the elections… but at the same time making some concessions to the masses. Since the 1980’s, however, it implemented the so-called ‘neo-liberal reforms’, most importantly privatizing huge sections of the economy that itself had previously nationalized, and became ever more hated by the masses who tried time and time again to overthrow its rule.

It is thus quite farcical that both candidates of the PAN and PRI, well-aware of the general desperation and disgust of people with the status quo, are pegging themselves as candidates for change and renewal. PRI, the party of corruption and dictatorship, is running a supposed ‘young’ face, the 45-year-old Enrique Peña Nieto, governor of the State of Mexico from 2005 to 2011 who is equally known for his dashing looks (‘El Guapo’ or handsome is his nickname) and his wife (a famed soap opera actress) and also for not being able to name a couple of books that he has ever read.

PAN is running a former minister in cabinets of current and past Presidents, Felipe Calderon and Vincente Fox, Josefina Vazquez Mota. She is supposed to represent some kind of a change by the virtue of her gender and that she is not from the PRI… let alone the fact that her right-wing Party has continued the same, if not worse, streak of oppression and privatization, consistently since its winning of power in 2000.

There is also the New Alliance Party (PANAL) candidate Quadri who is backed by sections of the corrupt teachers' union (SNTE) bureaucracy that split from the PRI. Quadri, whose performance in the first televised debate was remembered by uttering the word ‘privatization’ in every other sentence, will be only known as an ‘also-ran’.

Against these candidates of the same old capitalist parties is running Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (known by his abbreviates AMLO) who clearly won the last elections in 2006 but was robbed of his victory by massive vote rigging. Lopez Obrador is supported by a coalition called ‘Progressive Movement’ that includes the Party of Democratic Revolution (PRD), started in the 1980’s by Cuahtemoc Cardenas, the son of legendary left-wing President Lazaro Cardenas; the Labour Party (PT), a smaller grass-roots formation that started in 1990; and the self-described ’social-democratic’ Citizens’ Movement (MC) which is the new name for Convergence, and also a small party that supported Obrador in 2006. Most importantly, AMLO is backed by the newly-founded MORENA (National Regeneration Movement), a mass formation started by Obrador himself and which, for now, identifies itself as a ‘movement’ but acts very much like a lively mass organization, with the estimated membership of three million.

Interestingly enough, most youth and workers that I talked to, in the taxis, on the metro and on the streets, or on the campus of the legendary National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), at which I have come to study, were unequivocal in their hatred of both PRI and PAN and their inclination towards AMLO. The question, however, was if the election was rigged last time and we had to concede it despite a massive struggle (including more than half a million demonstrating in the Zocalo, the central square of the city) how will it be different this time? How can AMLO guarantee a fight to the end against the duopoly of the corrupt establishment parties? And how can we assure he will not ‘change’ after being elected, anyway? There was very much a lack of excitement, a lack of enthusiasm for AMLO’s campaign and message. And a lot of despair over the 10 to 20 percent lead that all pollsters showed Peña Nieto to have.

More than anybody, AMLO himself is to blame for this. Following his campaign one is struck by the two goals the man seems to follow: One, that of responding to the desire to change on part of the millions of the working people of Mexico, with their proud history of struggle for revolutionary change. And second, that of alleviating the worries of those echelons of the establishment that are very much afraid, not so much of AMLO himself but of those very millions behind him. Thus, even though he has put forward many excellent demands (minimum wage, union democracy, free education, food for all, actions against unemployment) that differentiate him from some reformist candidates, he has also been vague about the way to achieve these. Instead of recognizing the need for a revolutionary overturn of the situation, and most importantly, taking actions to overturn the capitalist system which is responsible for all the ills and evils of Mexican society, he has talked about the vague concept of a “Love Republic”. Instead of urging the people to guarantee democratic elections by grass-roots mobilization, he has been more keen to promise ‘post-electoral incidents’ like the 2006 battle against fraud will not happen any more, apparently responding to the conventional wisdom that the Mexico City middle classes were upset at the disruptions that those demonstrations caused. How ironic! In a battle over the heart and soul of the nation, to put a candidate of the working people at the head of the republic for the first time, some want us to believe that we should worry about the traffic problems that mobilizations can cause! This in a country where the Drug War alone has taken close to 60,000 lives and the poverty rate, by most cautious estimates, hovers around 45 percent. This, in itself, shows the massive class divide in Mexican society and the two separate universes in which the working people and the rich live.

It was, thus, not the ‘paralyzed campaign’ (to quote an article by the La Izquierda Socialista, Marxist wing of MORENA) of AMLO and ‘Love Republic’ that suddenly put fire to the dry leaves of frustration in Mexican society and unleashed the most massive movement since 2006. Like many other times in the history it was an accident; an otherwise passing event.

Peña Nieto’s ‘Black Friday’

Does Peña Nieto truly hold such a firm lead over the other candidates or must one doubt the polls?  This was a question that I was asking myself as I was met with the bizarre reality that not only everybody I talked to seemed to hate the guy, but AMLO had the most well-attended rallies whereas those of Peña Nieto and Josefina were carefully structured and without much mass presence.

A little bit of research into the question proved truly shocking. While pollster companies everywhere usually conduct polls based on who orders them and how manipulated the questions are, in Mexico the situation is even worse since the poll companies are quite directly linked to one of the ruling parties. This is also true about most daily newspapers (with the honourable exception of left-wing La Jornada that Chomsky once called the only truly independent daily in North America) and, of course, two giant television conglomerates, Televisa and TV Azteca that, as we will explain, have become targets of so much mass hatred. It was thus not surprising that everything seemed to be going well for Peña Nieto… if one only tuned in to these pollsters and media!

However, as much as the media can play a role in shaping public opinion in society, it has no absolute dominion over this. The real balance of forces in society is bound to burst onto the scene in one way or another.

The first indication of this came on the important public holiday of Mothers’ Day (May 10) where Beatles legend Paul McCartney held a free concert in the Zocalo where more than 200,000 people attended. When a group of supporters of Peña Nieto tried to unfurl a banner of him at the event they were met with massive chants of “AMLO, AMLO” and more direct chants against  ‘El Guapo.’ It was a national embarrassment for our Mr. Front-runner.

This, however, was nothing compared to the incident that happened the day after and started the current avalanche that seems likely to bury any chance of Peña Nieto becoming president.

On Friday, May 11, Peña Nieto went to a rare public appearance in Mexico City’s Ibero-American University (known as UIA or more commonly, Ibero). Now, as students in fiercely left-wing UNAM like to joke, it was given that he would not come anywhere close to our campus but Ibero seemed like a safe bet. A private institution sponsored by none other than the Jesuits (Society of Jesus), its main campus is located in the wealthy Santa Fe district of the city. He had delayed this appearance two times to make sure it would go smoothly and had said that he wanted to make sure to meet students that hail from ‘good families’.

May 11 could hardly have turned into a bigger disaster for the PRI candidate. He hadn’t started the event yet when he was widely booed by the mass of students. His supporters, few and far between, were drowned by the screams of “Out”, “Out with the PRI” and even “Killer”. When he finished he was chased by the shouts of “Coward” and the Mr. Front-runner ended up hiding in a university bath room for a few hours!

Student response in Ibero, as noted, far from a traditional left-wing university, was not a mere accident but seemed to bring up all that the masses hated about the PRI and in fact about the whole status quo in Mexico. Students wore the masks of Carlos Salinas de Gortari, the hated PRI president from 1988 to 1994, to indicate that Peña Nieto continues his way. (Even travel guide books list Salinas as one of the most loathed figures in Mexican history next to La Malinche and Santa Anna!). Every controversy and crime that taints his name came up from the May 3, 2006 crackdown in San Salvador Atenco (in the State of Mexico, at the time when Peña Nieto was its governor) which lead to two murders and dozens of sexual assaults to ‘feminicidos’ (unresolved murders of women in the same state) to his complicity with the drug cartels in the country… and even to the jewel of the crown of the PRI’s historical repression, the Tlatelolco Massacre of October 2, 1968 where hundreds of students were murdered on orders from the PRI President, Díaz Ordaz.

Peña Nieto, however, took the path that many arrogant politicians take when faced by such crises. Ahmadinejad, the ‘president’ that stole the 2009 elections in Iran, was quick to dismiss the demonstrations of millions as ‘dust and garbage’ (khas o khashaak). This only inflamed the protests and helped begin the course of the revolutionary movement of 2009. On a smaller scale, Peña Nieto resorted to a similar line of thinking. He said those who protested him were few solitary figures, paid organizers of the PRD, not real students or just simple “Porros” (potheads.)

This inflamed the students more. Quickly, an 11-minute YouTube video was produced by 131 students of Ibero, with their students cards in hand and proudly stating their name, reciting passionate reasons why they oppose not only Peña Nieto but also what he represents: the media duopoly (of Aztec and Televisa), the corruption and repression. [Video can be watched here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P7XbocXsFkI].

The video went viral and by the time that I write these lines it has been viewed by more than a million people. Ibero had started a flame that didn’t seem to want to die down. Messages of solidarity flow to Ibero from dozens of universities across the Mexico… even private and expensive ones where Peña Nieto’s ‘good families’ send their kids. To show that 131 brave students of Ibero are not alone, a movement was launched by the name of “I am 132” (yosoy132) which quickly became a suitable twitter hashtag as well (#yosoy132.) Thousands upon thousands of students and youth, and not only them, joined the movement not only on social media but on the streets of a country that is no stranger to political mobilization and demonstrations.

Largest demonstration since 2006

After a few gatherings and demonstrations against Peña Nieto and the TV duopoly were held in a few universities and towns, a great convergence of the movement was to happen on May 19 in Mexico City. Typical of many similar actions, from the Occupy Wall Street movement to the indignados in Spain (both of which, for obvious reasons of geographic and linguistic proximity, have had a huge reflection in Mexico), nobody knew who was the organizer for May 19. The hacker group ‘Anonymous’, who on the same day had hacked the PRI website, was mentioned as the organizer, somewhat playfully, by some of those present!

The demonstration was due to begin in the massive Zocalo (one of the largest city squares in the world) and march to the Angel of Independence square. Some of the organized groups started their march a few blocks earlier, from the front of the Palace of Fine Arts. I also started there with the contingent of comrades of the SME (Mexican Electrical Workers' union), the vanguard of the trade union movement in Mexico, some of whom are supporters of the journal Izquierda Socialista (Socialist Left), the Marxist wing of MORENA. It was the first time that I was standing in front of the famed Palacio de Bellas Artes which houses some of the most well-known works of communist painter, Diego Rivera, of which I am a big fan. It was a great feeling to set eye on the Palacio not as a tourist but as a participant in a movement of masses, similar to that which the Rivera murals paid homage to.

As we marched toward the Zocalo, it was clear that this was far from an ordinary march. Comrades of Izquierda Socialista were quick to point out this is going to definitely be the biggest political demonstration since the 2006 movement against electoral fraud. As the mass of people, estimated at around 40 thousand, filled the Zocalo and started marching toward the Angel through the narrow streets of Mexico’s Centro Historico, I couldn’t but be amazed by the kind of energy on display. All copies of Izquierda Socialista were quickly sold and comrades were out of them in no time. The crowd was not silent or motionless for even a second. Shouting, singing, chanting, running and jumping – a Mexico City demonstration is not unlike a triathlon! When the shouts of “Anybody who doesn’t jump is Peña Nieto” came, thousands of youth would instantly turn into kangaroos by jumping up and down.

Comrades who had the experience of marches noted a few points that made the demo stand out: high level of women participation, the youth energy and the fact that it was much more than the ‘usual suspects’ who had taken part in the demonstrations. As I talked to people on the march, I found out that for many this was the first demonstration they had ever taken part in. This made it much similar to the concurrent movements around the world (like Occupy Toronto of which I have first-hand experience). But this also meant that it shared the strengths and weaknesses of such movements.

The rally was officially titled as ‘non-partisan’ but it didn’t need much to see it was against the capitalist candidates and, naturally, in favour of AMLO. Comrades of the SME made popular the slogan of “Not one vote for PRI, not one vote for PAN” and some rather racier slogans against Peña Nieto and Josefina, especially the former, which would be unthinkable in any demonstration I’ve been to in Canada!

But, as much as clarity on the question of elections is important, the ‘mere negative’ message of the movement against Peña Nieto should not be automatically read as a bad thing. Most revolutions, after all, are started by the masses when they come out against what they hate most. The main thrust of the yosoy132 movement was also not only against Piena Nieto but against a history of corruption and oppression associated with the PRI (from Tlatelolco 1968 to Atenco 2006) and against the monopoly of big companies over people’s lives that was best exemplified for many by the media duopoly of Aztec and Televisa. After all, what better condemnation of bourgeois ‘democracy’ than the monopoly of two capitalist companies over more than 90 percent of mass media in the country?

Slogans like ‘I read, I don’t watch television’, ‘We want schools, not soap operas’, ‘Students will not be manipulated’ and placards like ‘Televisa-TV Azteca: imposition is enough, we want free elections’ all indicated this frustration at the corrupt heart of the status quo of Mexican politics. That Peña Nieto’s wife, Angelica Rivera, known by her nickname la Gaviota (Seagull) is an actress in some of the lowliest soap operas (Mexican capitalism’s choice of ‘opium of the people’) gave another dimension to the chants against her and her ‘idiotic’ husband.

The movement, of course, suffered from weaknesses as well. For many it might not have been clear what is behind a system that produces men like Peña Nieto, and why there should be clear support for Lopez Obrador against capitalist candidates (as opposed to boycotting, etc.) and, more importantly, why they need to take the fight to the political plane by joining MORENA and turning it into a fighting party of workers and youth. Comrades of La Izquierda Socialista have focused on two critical demands for the movement: To back AMLO and defeat the capitalist candidates for the first time in Mexican history (while continuing the fight and pressure) and inviting the working class, ‘our fathers and mothers’, to join the movement through solidarity strikes and other means. It is only the force of the working class that can finally break the back of the capitalist class.

The local branch of MORENA

The energy of the demonstration didn’t seem to have any end. All that was pent-up in Mexican youth had burst onto the scene and they weren’t going to go anywhere any time soon. As thousand upon thousands gathered around the Angel of Independence, discussions and debates, on small and large scales, could be heard everywhere. Like anywhere else in the city, street vendors had a prominent presence, but having marketed to the crowd, they sold not only a thousand and one blissful culinary wonders that hail from the streets of this city, but also books and DVDs with political themes. An atmosphere of change and a thirst for discussing the way forward could be heard everywhere.

Also real was the thirst for actual water after the taxing demonstration decided to march one more time back to the Zocalo from the Angel! As the youth seemed to have an endless reservoir of energy, they marched back to the Zocalo with the same vibrant pace which they had come with and when lost within the sea of people along Reforma Avenue, where you could look back or forward and see nothing but swarms of demonstrators, anybody would get more energy to run with the crowd.

It was, however, somewhat to my horror when I found out that as committed comrades of Izquierda Socialista, they had no intention of stopping for food after the march ended around 5pm (having marched since 10 am!). They were off to a local meeting of MORENA in the colonia (neighbourhood) of Santo Domingo in Coyoacán, south of the City that was due to begin shortly.

Eager to see MORENA in action, I joined them and after a trip on the Metro and Pesero (minibuses) we reached the narrow alleys of Santo Domingo, one of the 1800 colonias that form the giant Mexico City (by some estimates, the most populous city in the world.) Life sizzles with vibrancy in most of these colonias and Santo Domingo, one of the poorest in Coyoacán, was no exception. Right in the heart of the neighbourhood we entered a small office with a dozen chairs around where comrades of the local branch of MORENA had already started the meeting. Old and young, men and women, the local branch had a lively and genuine grass-roots feel to it. It was amazing to me to hear that this branch, along with many thousands across the country, meets every week. Obviously, the elections being near played a role in this vibrancy, but the demand of the comrades of Izquierda Socialista to turn MORENA into a political party of workers and youth and to keep it active beyond the elections seems to be perfectly well-placed in the context of the energy that the yosoy132 movement has injected into politics. If and when MORENA is turned into such a vehicle, a new chapter in Mexican politics will begin that will dwarf all the sectarian attempts of the past to create ‘new’ parties out of the blue.

Another demo… and then the next one

Since ‘yosoy132’ has come into existence, the energy that I described on Saturday, May 19 seems to have only expanded across the city and the country. There are almost daily demonstrations and assemblies in the capital, other cities and on campuses. With the exception of those that happen in my own campus of UNAM, I haven’t been able to attend them all.

On Monday, 21 May, Lopez Obrador spoke in the “Square of Three Cultures” (Plaza de las Tres Culturas) to tens of thousands of students who had come from all over the country to fill the main square of Tlatelolco. The meeting place could hardly be more symbolic for it was right here where the student massacre of 1968, described above, happened. Before AMLO came on to the stage,  representatives of the different universities spoke. The slogan of “yosoy132” was one of the dominant slogans as were slogans in support of the students of Ibero, showing the obvious link between the anti-PRI movement to that of the pro-AMLO camp.

Successes of Mexican Marxists

On behalf of the MORENA branch in the National Polytechnic Institute (IPN), one of the largest public universities in the country with more than 150,000 students, one of the supporters of La Izquierda Socialista spoke. His call for nationalizing the commanding heights of the economy, overturning the capitalist system and building a socialist society was met with the applause of thousands. I had lost comrades in the crowd and it was only after I zoomed in on him with my camera that I found out he was proudly holding a copy of La Izquierda Socialista. To suddenly see that the ideas of the IMT were being presented in the midst of a mass movement from the official platform of the AMLO campaign gives one a joy that is not describable by words.

This is only one aspect of the successes of the young journal of the International Marxist Tendency supporters in Mexico which have successfully established themselves as the Marxist wing of MORENA. All the other ‘leftist’ organizations who reject this orientation to a vibrant mass organization of 3 million members fail to connect with the mood of the Mexican working class and youth. The Marxists of La Izquierda Socialista, stand with their full programme for a Socialist revolution, while fighting shoulder to shoulder with the masses to achieve an immediate objective: defeating the capitalist candidates on July 1. This was also evident in the MORENA branch meeting that I attended in Santo Domingo. A comrade of ours was colloquially known as ‘Marx’ by his co-morenistas who made it clear that they don’t necessarily agree with all his ‘red’ ideas or his occasional rage against ‘petty bourgeois’ ideas. But he and other comrades of La Izquierda Socialista commanded a deep respect within MORENA for being some of the most committed and disciplined activists in the crowd. The comrade that was mentioned, for instance, took part in 4 demonstrations in 4 days (how this went hand in hand with the usual Mexican practice of also partying until the wee hours of the morning and then showing up, safe and sound and ready, to the demonstration the morning after is what I am yet to figure out.)

It is with these methods that Marxists gain an ear among the masses and those very ‘red’ ideas will become much more acceptable.

Another aspect of the success of our comrades could be seen by the fact that the hated Televisa resorted to attacking La Izquierda Socialista by name. When another demonstration of youth targeted the Televisa offices, Joaquín López-Dóriga, the network’s nightly news anchor since 2000 and naturally a national celebrity, said that the protest was organized by the Marxists of La Izquierda Socialista, a charge that has been answered by the comrades (http://www.laizquierdasocialista.org/node/2440) by putting forward our demand for nationalization of the media and putting them under democratic workers’ control.

***

As I write, the frequent demonstrations and mobilization continue. The last major one I attended was on Wednesday, May 23, with the specific demands of democratizing the media and ending the hated duopoly of Aztec-Televisa. Students from UNAM, IPN, ITAM, Metropolitana, Tecnologico De Monterey (known as the most expensive university in the country, a charge fiercely denied by our comrades on that campus!), among others, were present in a mass meeting in Mexico City which turned into a nightly march, first in front of Chapultepec TV station (of Televisa) and then into the Zocalo. A more militant mood was discernible in the march. As, for instance, every banner of the PRI or PAN that was seen on the way was torn down and burnt by the demonstrators, including a jubilant scene of burning the PRI flag in front of Televisa’s Chapultepec station (a president of which used to boast about being a ‘soldier of the PRI’!). According to La Jornada, at least 15,000 took part in the Mexico City march and similar demonstrations were held on the same day in more than 14 other states (of the total 31 states.)

All the confidence of the international and domestic ruling class about the victory of Peña Nieto, which they thought they would achieve with the same ease of a corny story of one of their telenovelas, has faded. All that was solid has melted into the air and the political earthquake that the youth movement has created has shaken not only Peña Nieto but the whole country to its foundations. The wind blows the tops of the trees first and that the movement would start by ‘spontaneous’ actions of youth and students should come as no wonder to anybody. It is important for the movement, however, to reject the false advise of some of its false friends, also seen with the Indignados in Spain, Occupy, etc., that praise its ‘horizontal’ nature and ‘non-partisan’ gestures. What we need is a clear and massive organizing to defeat the hated candidates of the bourgeoisie on July 1 and we need to go to the workers with clear slogans: Join us so together we can build a different and new Mexico and World! Nationalize the big media and run them under the democratic control of workers so they can work toward enriching the culture and level of society! Let us fight against the rotten capitalist system and replace it with a democratic Socialist society, run by the working people, for the working people.

There are reasons to believe youth are discovering the correct way by their own experience.

A day before I wrote these lines, a mass assembly of yosoy132 was held on the campus of UNAM. The proposal of calling on workers to join the movement, along with linking the movement to its historical precedents, specifically the 1968 student struggle and anti-fraud movement of 1986 and 2006 was discussed and approved by the students. These are undoubtedly the right steps to take.

Any blow at the capitalist class in Mexico will have huge reverberations around Latin America… and North America. The giant northern neighbour, the United States, has a history of bloody interference in Mexican politics to further its goals. Its preference for the victory of the PRI is not hidden to anyone. A defeat for the PRI and other capitalist candidates, and that only a few months before the crucial Venezuelan elections in October, together with the continuation of the mass movement, which should find itself channelled into MORENA, and if the latter turns into a more permanent formation, this will shake the entire region. In this epoch of revolution around the world, the youth and workers of Mexico are set to play their historical role.

Arash Azizi, May 31,

Coyoacán, Mexico City