In an act of great symbolism and demonstration of political power, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) enacted his controversial judicial reform on September 15, Mexican Independence Day.
Hundreds of thousands of followers witnessed the national ceremony, in which the president celebrated the Cry of Independence for the sixth and last time at the head of the Government.
Once he hands over the position to his successor, Claudia Sheinbaum, on October 1st, López Obrador promised to retire from the political scene and go live at his ranch in the south of the country.
With his retirement, the first Government of the National Regeneration Movement party (Morena) in the history of Mexico ends. What mark does AMLO leave?
«New hegemonic party»
«Its main legacy is a disruption of the party system as we knew it, it is a new stage, with a new hegemonic party, which has largely swallowed up the others. Above all, the local leadership of the PAN (National Action Party) and the PRI (Institutional Revolutionary Party) have joined Morena,” observes Jesús Carrillo, director of economics at the Mexican Institute for Competitiveness (IMCO).
In the opinion of Isaac Palestine, political advisor and Morena activist, López Obrador transformed “the old regime of corruption, in which three parties shared positions of power.”
Likewise, the Puebla columnist adds that AMLO’s political legacy “continues under construction, because it is not a process that has concluded, but is being defined.”
Morena without AMLO
Although Morena will continue to govern the country for at least another six years under the elected president, Claudia Sheinbaum, it is worth wondering what will happen to the party without the political leadership of López Obrador, founder of the National Regeneration Movement.
In an interview with DW, lawyer Isaac Palestine admits that there is a “serious risk that Morena will be diluted in the political power of the state executives. Today, the party in the states is more of a brand, a letterhead, than a political organization itself. “There is a risk that Morena will not consolidate as a political organization and distance itself from social movements.”
The political advisor fears that Morena “could suffer its first moral defeat” if it only concentrated on the institutional struggle, forgetting the social part.
“Power struggle” within Morena
For his part, political analyst and commentator Guillermo Torres Quiroz, director of the Saber Votar platform, does not rule out that Morena has the possibility of continuing to govern for another 12 or even 18 years.
According to the expert, López Obrador foresaw the power struggle within the party after his departure: «Currently, most of the members of the Chamber of Senators and Deputies, coming from Morena, have a particular loyalty towards him. Even of the 48 appointments that Sheinbaum has made to his future cabinet, 23 people are totally loyal to the president.
In addition, almost all Morena governors are close to the president, he adds.
However, “in the not too distant future,” AMLO’s strategy to ensure the political future of his party could be overshadowed by the power struggle within Morena, Torres Quiroz tells DW: “Cannibalism is very common in the Mexican left. We are already seeing in some states how these divisions are generating conflicts. There is still, at the federal level, an imposition of López Obrador’s strong leadership.
Hence, at least in the first two years, Sheinbaum is not going to “rebel” against AMLO, the political analyst believes.
Institutional weakness
In statements to DW, Jesús Carrillo, from IMCO, explains that the future of the party will also “depend on the degree of institutionalization it achieves and the internal cohesion it can maintain.” “Although we already see a new political elite in power,” he continues, “this is not yet assumed to be an elite.”
The expert adds that, as a consequence of the judicial reform and the qualified majority of Morena and its allies in the Chamber of Deputies, “the counterweights will no longer come from the division of powers, as before, nor from political controls imposed by the opposition, now they will have to come from within. Counterweights are necessary for the stability of any system, and Morena has not yet built that.
Son follows in AMLO’s footsteps
In early September, the Mexican president reported that his son Andrés Manuel López Beltrán will participate in politics to help “consolidate” the Morena party.
“There has been a lot of speculation that he could reach the general secretary or the organization secretary of the party, which makes us see that there is a line from the president to try to anchor Morena to the left,” says Isaac Palestine.
For his part, Guillermo Torres is convinced that AMLO “will continue to give some political influence” from his ranch, in distant Palenque: “He is a man of a lot of symbolism, and the fact that he is going to a final reflection, to pass the last years of his life away, it is to give his followers that image that he is someone in a retreat, even spiritual, because he has already established himself in power.
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