El que se mueve no sale en la foto. “Whoever moves does not come out in the photo.” A column in Quadratín attributes the line to Fidel Velázquez, who led the Confederation of Mexican Workers (CTM) from 1941 until his death in 1997. The column gives no date for it.
The columnist reads it as advice to keep a low profile in order to stay in power.
“¿Qué hora es?” “La que usted diga, señor presidente.” “What time is it?” “Whatever time you say, Mr. President.” Mexican columnists quote the exchange as a well-known maxim. In 2020, a guest column in Expansión applied it to judges who follow the president.
The columns give no origin for it, and none ties it to a particular president. A variant ends la que usted mande, “whatever time you order.”
La cargada, “the charge,” is the rush of politicians to declare support for whoever has been chosen as the next leader. The Diccionario del español de México of El Colegio de México defines it as a “congregación de oportunistas, sobre todo en el ámbito político,” a gathering of opportunists, above all in politics.
Luis Estrada’s film La ley de Herodes (1999) is set in 1949. Juan Vargas, an honest clerk, is made mayor of the village of San Pedro de los Saguaros. His padrino político, his political godfather, is López, the private secretary of the governor. López advises him to use his power and gives him a gun. By the end of the film, Vargas is a federal deputy.
According to El Universal, the state film institute IMCINE tried to pull the film from the Acapulco film festival in November 1999. The film went on to win nine Ariel awards.
El que manda, manda, y si se equivoca, vuelve a mandar. “The one who commands, commands, and if he makes a mistake, he commands again.” In a 2019 column in Excélsior, the journalist Félix Cortés Camarillo wrote that he learned the saying from a businessman, don Emilio.
Under the PRI, the outgoing president chose the party’s candidate for his succession. The practice is called el dedazo, from dedo, “finger.” The dictionary of the Spanish Academy defines it, in its Mexican sense, as the designation of a candidate by the executive “without the usual formalities.” The writer Jorge Castañeda has argued that every PRI president used it.
Until the name was announced, the chosen man was el tapado, “the covered one.” For months, names of possible successors went around. In the end, the president decided.
In the years of PRI rule, the president’s annual report to Congress was known as el Día del Presidente, “the Day of the President.” It came with parades, luxury cars and national broadcasts that lasted for hours. The president arrived at Congress among ovations.
The speech was judged by counting how many times applause interrupted it. A 2008 reform ended the president’s obligation to attend.
Mexico’s Federal Labor Law has a legal category called trabajadores de confianza, “employees of trust.” Article 9 says the category depends on the nature of the work: direction, inspection, supervision and control of a general nature, and work related to the employer’s own personal affairs within the company.
Article 185 lets the employer end the employment of such a worker “if there is a reasonable motive for loss of trust,” even when it does not match the causes for dismissal listed in Article 47.
In Mexico, a person who tiene palanca, “has a lever,” has a connection who can open a door. In a 2021 article, the researchers Arellano-Gault and Trejo Alonso describe the palanca as a mechanism for exchanging favors among acquaintances and “acquaintances of acquaintances.” It forms a network “that rests on relationships of trust.”
One participant in their focus groups said: “En México, la vida se compone de una serie de palancas” (In Mexico, life is made up of a series of levers).