MEXICO.- On the way to the presidential renewal that starts with all this 2023, the Movimiento Ciudadano party was emboldenedvoted at its democratic convention and, in the voice of its founder, Dante Delgado, 72, launched a challenge as bold as it was risky: “We will not make alliances with any other party”.
To test their strategy, the orange party (as it is also known by the color of its logo) decided to go it alone. First, in the upcoming elections in the State of Mexico and Coahuila and then jump, from that experience, to the 2024 elections with three possible candidates: the governors of Jalisco and Nuevo León, Enrique Alfaro and Samuel Garcia, respectively, as well as the mayor of Monterrey Luis Donaldo Colosio.
Dante Delgado calculated that there are “millions of Mexicans” who want a political option that is neither Morena nor the PRIAN alliance (PRI, PAN, the main opponents). And that opens up opportunities for him, as has already happened in Guadalajara and Monterrey, the second and third cities in Mexico, just like their respective states.
“We can win the presidency because we are a movement that looks face to face at the two alliances of the old politics,” he told the local press.
Since its creation in 1996, Movimiento Ciudadano had survived thanks to alliances with the most powerful parties. In 2000, when it was still called Covergencia (it changed its name in 2011), it participated for the first time in a presidential election, supporting Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas.
In alliance with the PRD and the PT, Delgado ran for governor of Veracruz in 2004 and 2010, but lost on both occasions against the PRI members Fidel Herrera and Javier Duarte, respectively. He also supported Andrés Manuel López Obrador in his 2006 and 2012 presidential campaigns as a regional coordinator.
Little by little, MC has been gaining regional land until becoming solid candidates in its ranks. Eduardo Reyes, political analyst and director of the consultancy Intelite, explains that the sustained growth of orange is a strategy in the style of a business model: “MC has the ‘franchise model’ as a proposal.”
That is, “distinguishes break points, offers the space and, in case of winning both (party and candidate), they obtain benefits, such as prerogatives, co-optation of spaces, attraction of voters and positioning”, he details. “If they don’t win the elections, the party achieves territorial breadth, roots and a greater presence at the cost of exploiting the profile of those who, without closeness to the party, are forced to promote it.
In this way, has managed to attract characters as dissimilar as the singer Francisco Xavier Berganza (former candidate for governor of Hidalgo); Deputy Salomón Chertorivski; Senator Patricia Mercado or actor Roberto Palazuelos, candidate for the government of Quintana Roo coordinated by Dante Delgado, a native of Veracruz, where he was interim governor before jumping to federal positions, as a state official, senator and even ambassador to Italy.
The presidential
When Dante Delgado is asked how he defines the party he founded after leaving the PRI due to a disagreement with former president Ernesto Zedillo, he answers that MC is a “social democratic” partyan ideology that supports state interventions in the economy and society that lead to greater equality within the framework of a capitalist economy.
He considers Morena and its founder, the president of Mexico, to be more conservative than leftist because they have withdrawn support from civil society or reduced it to a minimum on key issues such as sports, the arts, human rights and science.
“That’s not being on the left,” he observes.
MC is also critical of the policies of the current administration on issues such as militarization or presidentialism and describes himself in favor of sexual diversity, women’s freedom and the decriminalization of drugs, although in the states where he currently governs, he is blamed for his lack of sensitivity to push this agenda .
In the fourth government report of Enrique Alfaro that was carried out a few days ago in Jalisco, the rector of the University of Guadalajara, Ricardo Villanueva, left the campus in protest against the reduction of the education budget while a group of women from the Federation of University Students asked to name him “persona non grata.”
Secondly, gender violence in Jalisco is reflected up to date with 11 women victims of femicide and the impunity of the justice system, which has only sentenced 60 people out of 2,776 prosecuted for crimes against women, according to the Center for Strategic Development Studies. However, in other areas, Alfaro fared better, such as in the elections last June to renew local positions: Movimiento Ciudadano once again prevailed as the favorite.
In Nuevo León, Samuel García also enjoys high popularity despite the many challenges he has faced. in the first year of his government that began in 2021, such as the declaration of emergency due to the shortage of water in the Cerro Prieto and La Boca dams last February that led to an unprecedented crisis in the state capital, as well as reports of disappeared or murdered women, as well as the controversy generated by the “adoption” of a minor from the DIF system.
At only 34 years old, García has a road ahead in politics, a baby on the way (everything adds up) and an influencer as a wife while constantly boasting record figures in attracting investment to the state that is the most industrialized in the country.
Both he and Alfaro and Luis Donaldo Colosio, son of the assassinated presidential candidate with a more discreet profile in the Monterrey mayor’s office, have said they are interested in being presidential candidates for the orange party. “Different options”, they describe.
Analyst Reyes acknowledges that MC and his candidates have a chance to fight; However, he doubts that the party is precisely “something different” because in its actions it appears more “ideologically diffuse and structurally undemocratic.” Of course: “with a good nose for hunting opportunities.”
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