Opposition alliance ruined Morena’s party: a divided Chamber of Deputies looms

Despite the infamous custom of Mexican candidates to declare themselves the winners of their respective elections as soon as the polls close, the conformation of the Chamber of Deputies in Mexico after its total renovation leaves a series of complex realities and bittersweet results for everyone involved, including Morena and the “opposition alliance”.

The June 6 elections were already historic and complicated in the previous one. In the midst of a pandemic, COVID-19, and facing a period of violence, insecurity and polarization for the candidates, Mexico mobilized more than 90 million voters to elect more than 21,000 positions. Included is it so the 500 seats of the Chamber of Deputies.

Forced after a catastrophic 2018, the until then hegemonic parties, coming from the shadow of the minority in Congress, have agreed on an unprecedented alliance. The goal was difficult, the explanation simple: take away from Morena, the ruling party, the majority in San Lázaro, where the Estimates are decided every year and hence the president Andrés Manuel López Obrador He had succeeded in pushing through reforms of all kinds, including the Constitution, without major problems.

After polling day, the goal has been achieved. Half. STOVE (National Action Party), PRI (Institutional Revolutionary Party) and PET (Party of the Democratic Revolution) they took Morena, according to the rapid count of the INE and in the absence of official results, one of the most powerful weapons of the ruling party: the qualified majority in the Chamber of Deputies, with which they could reform the Mexican Constitution.

The citizens’ message, while waiting for the final and certified numbers, it seems clear: endorsed the majority for Morena and her allies, but with less power than in 2018, and strengthened the opposition. The Legislative Palace of San Lázaro should be, as one always expects of an assembly, the space of debate, construction of agreements and plurality.

Plurality by the way virtually none of the newly created parties will have access. Everything seems to indicate that Fuerza por México and Progressive Social Networks will not obtain seats and the reborn PES (Solidarity Meeting Evening) it could have up to six, but in the worst case it would also be out of the lower chamber Morena’s ally with evangelical roots.

Now, López Obrador’s party will need its allies PT (Labour Party) and PVEM (Green Ecologist Party of Mexico) maintain its weak absolute majority, of 250 plus one deputy. Senator Manuel Velasco has already indicated on Sunday that they would sell their support for the so-called “fourth transformation” dearly.

In any case, even if the Citizen Movement got on the boat of the ruling party, Morena could not carry out constitutional reform without going through the doors of the containment of the opposition alliance. Although he failed in his attempt to regain control of San Lázaro, PAN, PRI and PRD all improved their numbers compared to 2018. Obtained, in the most advantageous scenario for them, the key to negotiating major reforms, those preferred by the occupant of the National Palace.

At best, based on the quick tally and preliminary figures, the opposition bloc, with the possible addition of Movimiento Ciudadano once the electoral process is completed and the LXV inaugurated in September, it would reach 240 votes, a more than acceptable threshold, especially for the still fierce negotiations of the federal budget.

Morena, despite what its leader Mario Delgado says, which some within the party have already started to use as a scapegoat for possible defeats, suffered a setback in the Chamber of Deputies.

López Obrador’s “steamroller” in the first three years of the six-year term must be reconverted to be successful at the end of the administration, and until 2024: yes to the icing on the cake characterized by his ability to impose himself without listening to the rest for the past three years, he will now need precisely those he did not know all this time.

But these are the two who must show their negotiating side: for them there will be the key, including an opposition alliance that will test its capacity for unity and its discipline not to break ranks.

The big absentee this Sunday, in more than one way, was López Obrador. After having voted early this Sunday, and expressed loud and clear a “long live democracy”, the president, who more than once he intervened during his mornings in the electoral process he was kept under seven keys and was not even seen to celebrate the “democracy party”. This Monday, during his usual press conference, the fireworks that were stored for the weekend is expected.

“No AMLO, no party”, expressed the citizens at the polls. Without the president on the ballot, Morena’s promise was deflated, but not dead. He will add several governments, not all those that its leaders would have wanted – once again blamed by the alliance of the opposition -, and will continue to be the dominant force in the country.

This Monday, as the votes wait to be counted and the electoral process comes to an end, another interview will begin that goes beyond San Lázaro and goes directly down to the National Palace: the race for the presidential succession of 2024 It will not take long for him to interfere in all the affairs, in all the negotiations, in all the calculations. But there will be time for this.

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