Morena is built as a Dominant Party

 Morena is built as a Dominant Party

Diego Martín Velázquez Caballero

It seems increasingly clear that the Mexican electoral system has entered a terminal crisis. The systematic violation of procedural rules by most political actors is done with the consent of the electoral authority and this is a consequence of the performance of the party system. Participation in politics is contained in the authoritarian dimension of personalism, particularly of executive and factual powers, which deinstitutionalizes parties and decompensates electoral procedures.

Demographic preferences favor Morena's electoral proposals; However, the legislative project of the Fourth Transformation has led to the ruling party including alliances of all kinds at the regional level to achieve a majority that will be overwhelming against the opposition. Partisan migration and political transfuguism have overwhelmed Morena. However, the inclusion that is increasing in Morena for greater electoral profitability determines that the party loses dynamism, leadership and principles. The power that Morena achieves and the inability of its political cadres is terrifying.

The speed that the inclusion of new members and candidates for the Fourth Transformation has taken has blurred the progressivism and Justicialism that was understood as the flag of the Morenoist left; Now, we talk about a humanism that implies everything and nothing. Like the PRI, Morena is becoming a political wild card that orients itself according to the context.

The problem of the new Official Party is the formation of its nomenklatura. It is a fact that even though presidentialism is providential in the direction of the Mexican political system, it was configured as a mortal god that only lasts six years and is subject to an inner circle that truly influences power. This political class became dark and unpunished, until it ignored the principles that gave rise to the party. Will the same thing happen with Morena? How long will it take?

Morena is recruiting political cadres that indicate difficult times ahead, few elements have anything to do with the characteristics that allowed López Obrador to come to power in 2018. Better said, the Morena of 2024 is at the antipodes. If all other parties have failed to control the chiefdoms and informal leaderships, what is the reason why Morena considers otherwise?

The bosses of Mexican politics have put an end to the PRI, PAN, PRD, PVEM and now Morena; There is no doubt that they are going to destroy Mexico like Pedro Páramo did with Comala. A major political reform is necessary that regenerates political participation and institutionalizes the ways of accessing public office.

Even floor. The difficult construction of internal democracy in political parties

 Even floor. The difficult construction of internal democracy in political parties

Diego Martin Velazquez Caballero

During the last days the problem of the methods for the designation of candidates in the electoral coalitions and political movements of Mexico persists. The disagreement with the rules of internal competition and its interpretation makes it clear that the appointment of candidates motivates the defense of political rights, turncoatism and political entrepreneurship in Mexico and Latin America.

These phenomena are linked to a disease of political institutes and party systems that seems to find no solution. Will we reach a scenario, similar to the French one, in which we see people who are far from partisan alignments govern? Perhaps this happens in Latin America and explains the lack of institutionality in our political systems.

Given the natural partisan factionalism, as well as the discontent of some leaders, it has become a common currency for rulers and public representatives to decide to found new political parties. This situation, already widespread, means that -as in the French case- political systems have as many parties as wines and cheeses has the French country. Multipartism -more nominal than real-, in any case, generates problems for governance and the production of public policies with a high social impact.

Just as it is impossible to affirm conclusively that the parties are oligarchies and that each character must understand where they are getting into; it is absurd to conceive them under the model of Plato's Academy. Internal democracy counts; if not, why propose rules of participation? "For PRI members, better PRI members," said Granados Chapa and, up to now, observing their behavior, it seems that PRI members of all parties continue to govern us.

In Mexico, political parties do not end up consolidating. 2018 meant a hurricane that swept away the flimsy institutionality they had left. Years later and even with the vast experience of their leaders, they have not yet developed an institutional design capable of regulating organizational mechanisms, formation of militants, aggregation of interests and construction of a government plan.

Visceral factionalism in Latin America forces us to think seriously about the Sartorian proposals for the Second Round of elections or about semi-presidential mechanisms that reduce the negative influence of particularisms. The divisions do not benefit anyone, much less the country. Mexico's main concern has been national unity, and the internal life of the parties demonstrates the distance we keep from a community project.

In this failure, the most frustrating role has been that of electoral institutions, which underutilized huge budgets to develop civic political culture and make democratic principles the only way to make decisions. Everyone ended up agreeing with the president, but no one recognizes him.

The democratic rules generate that uncertainty typical of those who participate, knowing that they meet the requirements, respect the guidelines, compete and hope that their talents will produce a result. Without clear and functional competition mechanisms, the internal life of the parties generates gangrene and poisons the organization and the country.

The electoral reform in México. Will Win?

 The electoral reform in Mexico. Will Win?

Diego Martín Velázquez Caballero 

The proposal of the Fourth Transformation to renew the Mexican electoral system has ignited a singular debate to reconsider the democratic consolidation of the country. With everything and the polarization regarding the procedural and contentious sphere, the electoral institutions in Mexico have plunged into total disrepute. Organizations and courts that were configured as spaces to develop citizenship, legality and democratic political culture; they finally appeared like any other cacique corporatism space. The greatest seriousness corresponds to the onerous costs and the corruption of the legal-electoral structure in a society with so many deficiencies. Without wanting to admit it, the INE is one of the main institutions responsible for the Failed State, it negotiated to impose the worst rulers of all time.

Despite the cacique interests in the electoral fields, this has not been an obstacle to the development of intelligent proposals for many years. The history of electoral institutions is very interesting; however, it depresses how little influence it has had. Manlio Fabio Beltrones's contempt for Giovanni Sartori, for example, constitutes the constant of the invisible power that controls bureaucracies, budgets and progress of the INE/IFE/OPLES. All the effort to study the Mexican elections never served for anything, the Beltrones always prevented any attempt for a serious debate regarding the electoral system that Mexico needs. And there they remain. A few years ago, Denise Dresser terribly lambasted the INE, and now she defends it. What power do the Beltrons have to force someone like that?

Woldenberg, Reyes Heroles and hundreds of other electoral studies have pointed out the importance of Proportional Representation and the Second Round in Mexico. Multiple academics, study centers, thinkers from the different parties, have pointed out that a system of competition and proportionality is more important than the arbitrator. The country has always had excellent scholars of comparative electoral systems, but the political class does not listen or pay attention to them. They are good for student, doctrinal, training courses; but until there. The astonishment of the PRIANRD is ridiculous, they also had a formal academy in this regard.

Reinventing the electoral system in the country is essential to revive political parties and inhibit the promiscuous, turncoat and primitive alliances that the current state of affairs has led to. If the INE is not refounded, if the electoral system in the country is not changed, the political parties run the risk of becoming extinct and that the cacique de facto powers take the free rein of the country.

Political parties in Mexico are entities of public interest, they constitute the peaceful way to fight for power and the agonistic channel so that our differences flow, feed each other and learn. Without parties there is no democracy. The civic education schools are the parties, not the INE.

The political crisis in France is a scenario that must be taken into account for the Mexican case: without parties, any criminal can be president. Who is Macron? What does Macron represent? Nothingness, interventionism, imperialism, inside and outside France. French suicide is a reality and nobody does anything.

The INE must disappear so that the political parties return to their leading, partial, differentiated, intelligent, purposeful role. It is unfortunate the state of all the political parties in the country and to see the way in which the Cacique has closed the door for new party institutes.

Hopefully the debate and the conservation instinct of the political parties manage to design and implement an electoral reform that is right.