Internal Party Discipline

 Internal Party Discipline

Diego Martín Velázquez Caballero

Morena's internal dynamics close the year with a clear struggle between its various factions, openly defying presidential directives that advocate against reelection, nepotism, and cronyism, and promote internal democracy.

Several groups within the party are sending clear signals that they are willing to compete from within, against, or outside of Morena.

This reflects the reality of a party with great political power and the ability to mobilize support, but which lacks solid internal mechanisms to manage competition and guarantee discipline.

Something similar occurred during the decline of the hegemonic PRI, when internal divisions transformed its main strengths into its greatest weakness.

Morena's internal struggle, in the lead-up to the upcoming local and federal elections, is a clear example of what political analysts call the breakdown of the dominant coalition.

Barring an extraordinary event, such as Donald Trump deciding to interfere in the nominations, internal divisions within the party are practically inevitable.

Daniel Cosío Villegas once declared that the PRI could only be defeated by the PRI itself, and it seems this maxim is now being applied to Morena.

Although the electoral and judicial institutions lack the autonomy they boasted in recent years, the division among the various internal factions foreshadows a fierce battle for control of the nominations.

In this context, polls or the legal challenges to the processes seem insignificant compared to the intensity of this competition.

Meanwhile, the opposition parties remain vigilant regarding Morena's internal fractures, seeking to exploit them by poaching or strategically recruiting candidates with greater potential.

This has unleashed a wave of political defection, party migrations, and fierce competition among the different groups within the movement.

The country has failed to consolidate an institutionalized, balanced, and pluralistic party system.

Factionalism within the ruling party continues to dictate the course of crucial issues such as the alternation of power, democratization, public policy development, and even a possible shift toward conservative positions.

On the other hand, while arrangements for the presidential succession are already focused on 2030, the aspirants and their political allies are positioning themselves well in advance.

This means that the legislative majority will have neither the strength nor the weakness that Claudia Sheinbaum currently anticipates.

The Eternal Mexican Dark Ages

 The Eternal Mexican Dark Ages

Diego Martín Velázquez Caballero

When reflecting on the history and political reality of Mexico, one cannot help but feel that the nation, in its quest to consolidate itself as a political community, remains trapped in a kind of perpetual Dark Ages.

The comparison with historical examples such as Attila, Genghis Khan, or the Confederates of the southern United States in the 19th century is illustrative: all of them were defeated by the centralized force of a state, a monarchy, or a strong government that managed to impose order, control, and unity.

In the Mexican case, however, this confrontation has never effectively materialized.

Here, the local strongmen and the Catholic Church, with its clericalized vision of the Motherland, tenaciously oppose the idea of ​​a modern nation, a political community based on rights, equality, and popular sovereignty.

In Latin America, and in Mexico in particular, the tendency to fragment the political community into regional micronationalisms, cultural tribes, and outdated power relations hinders the construction of a cohesive nation.

The local strongmen, with their local power and territorial control, wield an authority that does not seek integration into a common project, but rather the perpetuation of their homeland, their lineage, and their particular interests.

Catholicism, both institutional and social, in its feudal, curialized vision, reinforces this fragmentation by promoting a community of the faithful who obey and obey, instead of citizens who participate in and build a collective destiny. This scenario is reminiscent of ancient societies where feudal power reigned, where loyalty was not directed toward a political community, but toward a local lord, a family tradition, or a religious authority; loyalty was servitude and vassalage.

The modern nation, on the other hand, requires a common narrative, a shared identity founded on citizenship, rights, and popular sovereignty.

But in Mexico, this narrative has yet to take hold, and instead, fragmented stories persist, fueling micronationalism, loyalty to region, family, or the church, to the detriment of a national project.

This conflict of identities and loyalties is evident in the persistence of historical privileges, castes, special legal statuses, economic agreements, and old power structures that, instead of facilitating integration, further fragment the State.

The history of viceroyalties, regional privileges, and pacts of convenience shows how local elites prefer to maintain their homeland, their ancestral power, rather than join the nation that requires a project of unity and progress.

Examples like Genghis Khan, Attila, or the Confederates of the American South teach us that empires and strong states managed to impose their order through centralization and force, defeating the old fragmented structures.

In Mexico, however, this confrontation has not yet occurred.

The reason is that the local strongmen and the Church, with their narratives of the Motherland and their clericalized vision, have managed to maintain their power in a latent state, resisting any attempt at confrontation with the national state. In this perpetual Mexican Dark Age, no one wants to challenge these power structures.

The region, in its eagerness to maintain its privileges, resists the construction of a sovereign, modern, and civic nation.

The consequence is a kind of stagnation, a fragmented community living on ancient myths and loyalties, incapable of moving toward true integration.

As in feudal societies, loyalty is directed toward lords, lineages, or institutions that, in reality, hinder the creation of a strong and unified state.

Mexican history and politics seem condemned to an endless struggle between the forces that seek centralization and unity, and those that want to preserve their particular Motherland.

The defeat of the Confederates and their warlords in the past was achieved thanks to the strength of the centralized state.

Mexico needs, now more than ever, that confrontation that will break the cycle of the Middle Ages and build a modern nation, where the political community is a space of rights, equality, and popular sovereignty.

Go West: Is There Still Time?

 Go West: Is There Still Time?

Diego Martín Velázquez Caballero

Years ago, Fredo Arias King warned that democratization in Mexico faced a fundamental challenge: the need to build a quality democracy that would break with the legacy of clientelistic corporatism, which for decades had been the backbone of the political system.

His analysis, inspired by the experiences of democratization in Eastern Europe, indicated that the key to profound change lay in adopting the experiences of post-Soviet Central European anti-communism as a unifying element that would allow for the dismantling of authoritarian structures and pave the way for solid, independent, and accountable institutions.

The songs of Scorpions and Pet Shop Boys illustrated the optimism of the time for achieving the democracy of open societies.

In Eastern Europe, the defeat of communism not only implied a political transition but also the construction of a discourse that confronted the legacy of a regime based on ideology, repression, and subordination.

Anti-communism served as a catalyst for consolidating a democratic identity and justifying the break with the authoritarian past.

The narrative was one of liberating society from an ideological enemy, which facilitated the acceptance of change and the construction of new institutions.

The experience offered a lesson: without a clear diagnosis of the system's flaws and without a discourse that mobilizes citizens around profound democratic values, the transition can remain a superficial process, vulnerable to authoritarian relapses and the capture of institutions by elites.

In Mexico, history was different. The struggle against the PRI's authoritarianism was not framed around an ideological enemy, but rather as a search for legitimacy through competitive elections.

However, this strategy took more than twenty years to reveal its limitations.

Fredo Arias King was right to point out, before Denisse Dresser, Héctor Aguilar Camín, Lorenzo Córdova, and José Woldenberg, what it would cost to avoid the necessary historical ruptures to establish liberal capitalist democracy in Mexico and abandon the old regime of the Mexican Revolution—the platypus of the ostentatious, philanthropic ogre.

Neoliberal analysts belatedly recognized that the transition was insufficient to consolidate a quality democracy.

The fragility of the rule of law, the persistence of clientelism, and the inability to transform power structures into a genuinely democratic institutional framework left Mexico in a kind of limbo, vulnerable to populism and deeper subordination to the interests of the United States.

The Chilean experience offers a valuable lesson.

The departure of Pinochet and the process of democratic consolidation in Chile demonstrated that building strong institutions, coupled with a historical memory that promotes reconciliation, can prevent suicidal populism.

The key was a transition that was not merely formal, but involved profound social and economic reforms and a commitment to a high-quality democracy that prioritized institutional values ​​and citizen participation.

Observing these processes from Arias King's perspective invites Mexico to reflect on the need to abandon the logic of anti-communism as a strategy for rupture and, instead, commit to a narrative that strengthens democratic institutions and values.

The history of Eastern Europe shows that without a clear discourse against authoritarian legacies and without a real commitment to building a high-quality democracy, progress can be ephemeral, and the risk of falling back into authoritarianism increases.

The Chilean experience, for its part, shows that the transition can be lasting and solid if institutional reforms are accompanied by a strong and participatory democratic culture.

In a context where populism seems to lurk around every corner, Mexico needs to look to the West and learn that true democratization requires more than competitive elections.

It implies a deep commitment to building solid institutions, to definitively breaking with the corporatist past, and to a narrative that mobilizes citizens around democratic values, not around ideological enemies.

Only in this way can suicidal populism be avoided and progress made toward a future where popular sovereignty is a consolidated reality, not a mere mirage.