Reforma, Mexico City, December 10, 2022
By Mayolo Lopez
Ricardo Monreal, leader of Morena in the Senate, will be on trial next week, not only for the course he lays out for the so-called "Plan B" of secondary electoral laws [passed by the Chamber of Deputies last Wednesday, the same day it was presented by the administration of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, aka AMLO], but also due to the position he assumes with his own vote. Morena's radical wing in the Senate acknowledges that if the coordinator votes against "Plan B", the party's unity would crack.
MV Note: Morena, the Movement for National Regeneration, was originally created by López Obrador in 2011 as a grassroots movement to campaign for him as the presidential candidate of the leftist Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD), for the 2012 election. When he lost that election, he accused the PRD of not sufficiently supporting his candidacy. He left the PRD and worked to make Morerna meet the legal qualifications to become an official political party, which it succeeded in doing in 2014. He then became its candidate for president in the 2018 election.
When it became apparent that AMLO had overwhelming popular support and was going to win, many members of the traditional three major parties, the PRD, the PRI [Party of the Institutional Revolution, which, by opportunistic policy choices and autocratic means had held hegemonic contol of power in Mexico from the 1930s to the 1990s], and the PAN [conservative National Action Party which held the presidency from 2000 to 2012] left their parties and joined Morena. AMLO welcomed them. Some of his original followers, who were committed leftists, did not, seeing them as opportunists.
These leftists form the "radical wing" of Morena, and totally aligns themselves with AMLO's desires for what he calls his "Fourth Transformation" of Mexico [the first three being the War of Independence from Spain, 1810 to 1821, the Liberal Reform period of the 1860s and 70s under President Benito Juárez, and the Mexican Revolution, from 1910 to 1917 ].
Ricardo Monreal (born September 19, 1960 in Fresnillo, Zacatecas) is one of those who switched parties to join Morena. He has switched parties many times in his political lifetime. He holds a bachelor's degree in law and a Ph.D. in administrative and constitutional law. He worked as a professor of law for several years and was involved in several activists farmers' organizations during the 1980s.
In 1991 he became president of the state chapter of the PRI. He then represented the PRI twice in the Chamber of Deputies and once in the Senate. In 1998, after losing the PRI nomination for governor of Zacatecas, he left the PRI and joined the PRD, where he won its nomination for governor. He then won the three-way election with 44.6% of the votes.
After finishing his term as governor in September 2004, he briefly considered competing for the 2006 PRD presidential candidacy. Instead, he joined the presidential campaign of Andrés Manuel López Obrador. In the general election of July 2006, he was elected to the Senate for a six-year term for the PRD. In 2008, he left the PRD to join the small Workers Party [PT]. In 2011 and 2012, he was campaign manager for the presidential campaign of AMLO.
Since, at the time, the Mexican Constitution prohibited anyone's reelection to any office, he became a deputy in the Chamber of Deputies from 2012 to 2015 for the Ciitizens Movement party. In 2015, he joined Morena. From 2015 to 2017, he was delegation (borough) head of the Delegation of Cuauhtémoc in Mexico City.
In Morena's landslide victory in the 2018 general election, he was elected a senator. Later that month, his fellow Morena senators chose him as head of their caucus. In 2021, he was elected President of the Governing Board that oversees the operations of the Senate. [Wikipedia]
Senator César Cravioto, the spokesman for the radical wing considers that Morena's vote must be by consensus, although the bill that was approved by the Chamber of Deputies could be modified. "But it has to be by consensus and with the party members unified," he stressed...Cravioto expects the Morena caucus to vote "in one direction and that there will be no fissures, that there are no divisions."
Senator Monreal has avoided saying whether or not he is going to support "plan B" in electoral matters, arguing that he still has not had time to become acquainted with the more than 400 articles [taking up three hundred pages] that were modified by Morena's deputies and their allies [by simply adopting the draft delivered to them by the administration the same morning].
The reform contemplates, among other things, the administrative downsizing and reorganization of the National Electoral Institute (INE).
This Monday, the Governance and Legislative Studies Committees will rule on the bill sent by the Chamber of Deputies. Morena has the votes to push for their immediate approval in order to bring them to the full Senate on Tuesday, the 13th.
The radical group ... is made up of the general secretary of Morena, Citlalli Hernández; Héctor Vasconcelos, Antares Vázquez, Ovidio Peralta and Napoleón Gómez Urrutia [formerly the leftist leader of the Miners' Union], among others.
If Monreal were to decide to vote against the reform, it would precipitate his break with Morena and a number of other senators would follow him [a list of names is given]...
Senator Germán Martínez, founder of the Plural Group, maintains that Monreal must define his position:
"between appearing on a ballot ...to be Morena's candidate [in 2024] for [Head of Government of] Mexico City or leading the Opposition at the national level. I want to know if Monreal is negotiating with Morena for his candidacy in Mexico City or he is negotiating with the Opposition at the national level not to touch the INE [National Electoral Institute].
"Monreal holds the key to democracy or anti-democracy. Given that responsibility, he must be required to commit himself. As López Obrador says: 'define yourself: you cannot be with God and the devil'."