MEXICO.- The abrupt growth of Morena due to the popularity of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, its founder, left the parties in the shadows since the which operate in three ways: as opponents with sporadic successes, as political vanes in convenient alliances or as mercenaries to support the ruling force.
“In the elections that there will be this year in six states —Aguascalientes, Durango, Hidalgo, Oaxaca, Quintana Roo and Tamulipas— it is very clear”, observed José Fernández Santillán, a political analyst at the Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Studies.
“On the other hand, the president influences them, divides, corrupts or buys them”.
In recent days, the embassy of Spain was granted to the former governor of Sinaloa, Quirino Ordaz, despite the fact that the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), in which he has always been a member, threatened to expel him .
The former governor of Sonora, Claudia Pavlovich, also a PRI member, was appointed consul in Barcelona for the same dates. And she accepted.
The opposition parties have been more congruent in Congress since the midterm elections of 2021 Morena lost the qualified majority and is faced with opposing positions for its most important projects that need constitutional changes.
“That has served as a containment in the Senate and in the Chamber of Deputies to be able to stop the arbitrariness of López Obrador”, added Fernández Santillán.
This year it will be at stake for the Executive to carry out two of its most important plans: the electrical reform and the Pemex reform.
The analyst Santillán considers that both reforms are already unfeasible projects because the Senate has told him that they will not pass. In addition, the Reform proposed by AMLO would violate the agreements of the Treaty of Mexico, the United States and Canada (T-MEC) because the State would monopolize the activities.
But the discourse of some opponents is ambiguous and, at times, flirtations appear.
For example, the leader of the PRI in the Chamber of Deputies, Rubén Moreira assured that there are “meeting points” to approve the electrical reform initiative but with “nuances” in various meeting points. He did not specify which ones.
Meanwhile, the coordinator of the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD), Luis Espinosa, reported “that they will walk together” with the other opponents.
The problem is that it is not known where to go because the PRI has not defined itself and the National Action Party (PAN) reported that it will present its own reform initiative distant from the nationalization that Morena intends.
For public opinion in general, the basic question is whether the parties beyond Morena will be able to re-emerge in the short term or medium term, if they will avoid their disappearance at the cost of becoming other satellites of the ruling party as the current allies of the Labor Party (PT) or the Green Ecologist of Mexico (PVEM) have done to survive.
On the other hand, there are no outstanding leaders in the PRI, the PAN or the PRD. Politicians that people identify with and much less sympathize with.
In the states, Morena is on track to win five of the six governorships in this election 2022 with the exception of Aguascalientes, where the polls favor the PAN. This would make him govern more than 50% of the Mexican territory
The mercenaries
In the last three decades, 23 political parties that had the record was lost. The main reason was for not obtaining at least 3% of the valid vote required by the National Electoral Institute (INE).
In some elections, the PVEM and the PT were on the verge of losing it for not reaching the percentages, but with legal tricks and support from other big parties, they were saved.
Fernández Santillán explains that in 2018, for example, Morena somehow “lent” deputies and votes to save the PT. “It was convenient for him to survive.”
In the end, seven political forces remained active: PAN, PRI, PRD, Movimiento Ciudadano, PT, PVEM and Morena.
The last three were in alliance since 2018 and have continued as a block since then, except when the smallest see that they can’t win. In the case of Aguascalientes, they came across Morena.
They are mercenaries, they go with the highest bidder, according to their history. For three decades, the Green Party has also forged alliances with the PAN and the PRI. Then, when he saw that Morena was gaining strength, he allied himself with it as a strategy to stay on the electoral map.
In some regions it has reached 10% of the vote and that is why it is attractive to other political parties, although their ideologies are often extremist, explained Santillán.
“The PT is a small party, with a left-wing cut, but very dangerous and radical: it has alliances with people from North Korea, it supports Cuba , Venezuela, Nicaragua and Iran, enemies of Mexico’s main economic partner. It is dangerous, it has not been given due attention”.
Furthermore, it has had only one leader since its founding 23 years: Alberto Anaya, who is accused of using the party to obtain between 600 and 600 million pesos (between 40 and 40 million dollars) for day care centers (CENDIS) that operates in 14 states of the country, among other businesses.
Political parties in Mexico are allowed to maintain leaders for many years, as if they were a company, not a private institution.
In the case of the PVEM, after its founder Jorge González Torres got tired of reelecting himself, he passed the baton to his son, who was popularly called known as “El Niño Verde”, Jorge Emilio González Martínez, who from there jumped to the Senate.
To attract the spotlight, his proposals are usually scandalous and controversial.
The PVEM insists on reinstating the death penalty and the PT recently promoted a point of agreement to investigate various newspapers that have spread news that has been disqualified in the president’s morning conferences.
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