Sinembargo: Jorge Zepeda Patterson*
Nov. 17, 2019
My Morena, I will count to ten. So Andrés Manuel López Obrador could say, as does Miguel Bosé in his ardent song. The morena (dark-skinned one) provokes the Spanish artist, bites and destroys him. López Obrador's Morena blindly obeys him, but precisely because of that blind obedience it could become a problem, especially when he himself is slow to realize it.
The outrageous imposition of Rosario Piedra as president of the CNDH [National Commission for Human Rights] in Congress is not the first, and I fear that it will not be the last, of the political scandals that the party will incur in its desire to fulfill a desire of the President.
Right now the deputies are involved in a controversy over whether or not to modify the draft budget sent by the President and comply with AMLO's exhortation that it be approved without modifications. The problem is that, since it is a narrow blanket, the budget reduces coverage of key programs and needs including those of some Morena constituents, particularly in those in agriculture and in municipal governments.
Traditionally these autumn weeks serve to have the executive's project discussed and adjusted according to the consensus of the political forces. The group in power, previously the PRI now Morena, is a mosaic of various social, regional and sectoral currents that must reconcile matters of urgency and necessity. The budget constitutes a zero-sum game in which what someone wins another loses. The discussions and agreements in the Chamber of Deputies allow us to anticipate conflicts and foresee political outbursts.
Prevented from saying no to the President, Morena's leaders in Congress have tried to pass the budget proposal without yielding to the demands of various groups. It is true that some of these are true blackmails in search of personal benefits to which AMLO refuses to respond. But in other cases these are legitimate needs and actors that do not necessarily share the executive's priorities and seek to be heard. It is not surprising that many deputies, even members of Morena, are not yet in a position to grant their vote for approval. ...[The vote has been delayed beyond the official Nov. 15 deadline.]
Surely the leaders of the fractions will negotiate behind the scenes, twist arms and wills and get a budget that leaves the president happy, but it can be anticipated that it will be an agreement held together with pins and very likely will come undone in the months to come.
What is going on within that vast and undefined sack that is Morena can only be intuited. [It was created by] (d)issimilar forces that arrived from everywhere. It is a political babel that equally includes social activitists as well as last-minute opportunists, former members of PRI [Party of the Institutional Revolution that controlled Mexico from the 1930s to th 1990s], former communists and former PAN [conservative National Action Party] members, former leaders of the Green Party and traditional small farmer groups....
It is an improvised army that has generals from different backgrounds but lacks structure and reliable transmission belts. It is a fragile blanket stitched together with patches that seem to acquire their own life and subject the whole to permanent pulling. They are joined by loyalty to the chief leader, in some cases dictated by conviction, in others as a matter of convenience, but loyalty to the leader does not create the necessary identity or discipline for the mosaic of forces.
My Morena, I will count to ten. So Andrés Manuel López Obrador could say, as does Miguel Bosé in his ardent song. The morena (dark-skinned one) provokes the Spanish artist, bites and destroys him. López Obrador's Morena blindly obeys him, but precisely because of that blind obedience it could become a problem, especially when he himself is slow to realize it.
The outrageous imposition of Rosario Piedra as president of the CNDH [National Commission for Human Rights] in Congress is not the first, and I fear that it will not be the last, of the political scandals that the party will incur in its desire to fulfill a desire of the President.
Right now the deputies are involved in a controversy over whether or not to modify the draft budget sent by the President and comply with AMLO's exhortation that it be approved without modifications. The problem is that, since it is a narrow blanket, the budget reduces coverage of key programs and needs including those of some Morena constituents, particularly in those in agriculture and in municipal governments.
Traditionally these autumn weeks serve to have the executive's project discussed and adjusted according to the consensus of the political forces. The group in power, previously the PRI now Morena, is a mosaic of various social, regional and sectoral currents that must reconcile matters of urgency and necessity. The budget constitutes a zero-sum game in which what someone wins another loses. The discussions and agreements in the Chamber of Deputies allow us to anticipate conflicts and foresee political outbursts.
Prevented from saying no to the President, Morena's leaders in Congress have tried to pass the budget proposal without yielding to the demands of various groups. It is true that some of these are true blackmails in search of personal benefits to which AMLO refuses to respond. But in other cases these are legitimate needs and actors that do not necessarily share the executive's priorities and seek to be heard. It is not surprising that many deputies, even members of Morena, are not yet in a position to grant their vote for approval. ...[The vote has been delayed beyond the official Nov. 15 deadline.]
Surely the leaders of the fractions will negotiate behind the scenes, twist arms and wills and get a budget that leaves the president happy, but it can be anticipated that it will be an agreement held together with pins and very likely will come undone in the months to come.
What is going on within that vast and undefined sack that is Morena can only be intuited. [It was created by] (d)issimilar forces that arrived from everywhere. It is a political babel that equally includes social activitists as well as last-minute opportunists, former members of PRI [Party of the Institutional Revolution that controlled Mexico from the 1930s to th 1990s], former communists and former PAN [conservative National Action Party] members, former leaders of the Green Party and traditional small farmer groups....
It is an improvised army that has generals from different backgrounds but lacks structure and reliable transmission belts. It is a fragile blanket stitched together with patches that seem to acquire their own life and subject the whole to permanent pulling. They are joined by loyalty to the chief leader, in some cases dictated by conviction, in others as a matter of convenience, but loyalty to the leader does not create the necessary identity or discipline for the mosaic of forces.
It is enough to implement specific presidential directives, but it does not prevent others from being shattered. The best example is the chaotic process of election in which the movement is currently bogged down to choose its leadership. As is known, the electoral dispute between President Yeidckol Polevnsky and Bertha Luján, the main contender, has been one of mutual accusations of such a level of machinations and violations that the Electoral Court [oveerseeing the proper running of elections, including those within political parties] has suspended and postponed the election.
Morena was the instrument that López Obrador designed with enormous political talent in order to reach the presidency; but for the purposes of governing, it is turning out to be a mismatched, improvised, chaotic piece of machinery. It is able to respond to the president's short-term instructions, although most of the time it steamrolls his proposals without the discipline or sensitivity to turn López Obrador's ideology and convictions into daily practice, thus only getting him into trouble. We hope this relationship doesn't lead him to sing, with Bosé: "Morena, my cat, oh, she kills me, she kills me and kills me again. We go to hell." Spanish original
Morena was the instrument that López Obrador designed with enormous political talent in order to reach the presidency; but for the purposes of governing, it is turning out to be a mismatched, improvised, chaotic piece of machinery. It is able to respond to the president's short-term instructions, although most of the time it steamrolls his proposals without the discipline or sensitivity to turn López Obrador's ideology and convictions into daily practice, thus only getting him into trouble. We hope this relationship doesn't lead him to sing, with Bosé: "Morena, my cat, oh, she kills me, she kills me and kills me again. We go to hell." Spanish original
*Jorge Zepeda Patterson is an economist, writer of novels, political analyst and journalist. He holds a Masters in Social Sciences from the Latin American Faculty in Social Sciences (FLASCO) and did studies for a Doctorate in Political Science at the Sorbonne in Paris. He was a journalist for El País in Madrid, Spain. In 1991 he founded the newspaper Siglo 21 (Twenty-first Century) in Guadalajara. He has been a director of the newspaper, El Universal. In 2011 he founded the online news site www.sinembargo.mx, (Nevertheless), which he directs. He is also a professor at the University of Guadalajara. @jorgezepedap www.jorgezepeda.net