President Andrés Manuel López Obrador minimized the risks of turning the reform of the Afores into electoral noise against his candidate, and is preparing to tell the workers on his last May 1: have, so that you remember me, 100% pensions .
True to his style, Andrés Manuel first ordered the reform to be brought forward, without fearing the noise and knowing that the contingencies would be resolved along the way.
The reform right now, whether it gives some cramps or gives shrapnel to the opposition, even if the Secretary of Labor does not promote it, the Treasury does not defend it, and the Secretary of the Interior does not operate it well.
The 40 billion pesos that would be obtained from this reform are no small thing. The seed capital originally intended to fund pensions was 64 billion and would last two more six-year terms. With the funds they already ‘found’ they free the next one.
Thus, as was addressed in this space weeks ago, in 2027 some 45 thousand workers who in the middle of the next six-year term will have retired under this scheme and with salaries less than 16 thousand 700 pesos, will see that their payment will not be reduced when they stop working. .
The President knows that it is an unbeatable closing of the six-year term in his relationship with the workers: next Wednesday, he will be able to boast a historic increase in the minimum wage in any six-year term, and two reforms to the Afores in favor of employees. Big big May 1st.
It is a success despite the fact that the approval of the initiative was tortuous, giving ammunition to the opponents who in the last part of the electoral campaign will be able to proselytize saying that Morena goes against the workers’ funds.
It is typical of this government: they announce a reform, they launch it at their discretion, they do not take any care to explain it adequately (they believe they are immune to markets and criticism) and, once the controversy is triggered, they even try to advance the scope of the new law.
Because chaos does not scare away a President who knows that the opposition lacks the reflexes and credibility to cause damage; For this reason, in the midst of this entire process, ‘goblins’ even emerged who, even for a few hours, made the reform more fearsome.
‘Duendes’, that figure from the times when the PRI tried to get their way without showing their hand so, in the event of being caught in the act, they could claim innocence and even feign indignation if they were accused of being abusive and cheating. .
Such a resource has been reactivated on this occasion: those from Morena invoked the ‘goblins’ because they cannot name in vain those who time and again order them not to change “not even a comma.” So the hand of God that tried to score that goal, we already know whose it is: it is in its nature.
In the process, the president reinforces, to the detriment of many union leaders, the image of the President as the great benefactor. The workers will owe him, and not his union leaders, this new, and no less, benefit.
Andrés Manuel will leave the National Palace in the middle of talks with the CNTE, with the SME on his side even if he owes them some things, but above all having, in PRI style, co-opted the charros of the SNTE and minimized the workers’ centers that live today in starvation: CTM.
