MEXICO: FROM A SIMULATED DEMOCRACY TO A SIMULATED DICTATORSHIP

In an unprecedented televised ahead-of-time-ceremony, held at the presidential residence in Mexico City, Felipe Calderón took power as “president” this midnight. It was like a contemporary update of those bad movies of South American dictatorships from other times.

Later on, in a recorded message Calderón said that he would go to Congress later that day, as if it were something of little or no importance. Everything seems to indicate that the real ruling forces will go into an offensive mode in order to keep on holding power, no matter what.

Once this 10-minute ceremony was finished, I went to the 24hr coffee shop near my house. On my way back home, a police officer asked me to pull over. I asked him whether I had done something wrong and he told me it was a routinary check. I replied that that was prohibited by law and, stuttering over his words he asked: “by.. by what?”... I thought for a moment about the thing that I had just watched on tv. I looked at him and said: “Yes, you are right... law what?”.