Way deep down, the problems beleaguering Mexico’s left wing Democratic Revolution Party (PRD) are purely ideological.
Hundreds of thousands of former PRD members were in sheer disagreement since 2012 when President Enrique Peña Nieto forged his “Pact for Mexico” to push his reforms. At the time, President Peña Nieto was seen as a conciliator and his bringing together the extreme left and right to a middle of the road stance was hailed.
But not by all at PRD where its former twice presidential candidate Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) led a splinter movement that coalesced in 2014 with the formation of the National Regeneration Movement (Morena) political party. Since then, Morena has been rapidly eroding the PRD voting base with its less moderate left views.
The latest erosion came Monday when former PRD Senate leader and current Senator Miguel Barbosa turned in his resignation after he decided he’d back the AMLO potential presidential candidacy in 2018.
Senator Barbosa had no intentions of leaving the PRD, but within the party his backing of AMLO was considered a stab in the back as the current leadership has viewed Miguel Ángel Mancera as next year’s Mexico City candidate for mayor.
But Barbosa did not abandon ship at PRD alone; there were 11 other candidates that flocked with him and just Monday they were backing the State of Mexico candidacy for governor of Delfina Gómez Álvarez as she kicked off her campaign in Texcoco, east of Mexico City where she was once mayor.
This new split of the once organized left is seen with deep concern by all the leftists, particularly those who no longer believe AMLO can get elected as president and would like to start seeing new blood representing the PRD in national elections.
The last schism may prove deadly to the future of PRD, but for now, with only eight representatives left in the Mexican Senate, it is still the third political “force” (if you can call eight senators a representative force in the 128 member Senate). Other small parties are the Green and the Labor parties each with 7 senators each.
The 12 former PRD senators that will no longer form part of that parliamentary group cannot by law form their own parliamentary representation as the Organic Constitution of Congress impedes it, as groups are integrated at the beginning of each new congress.
But then by moving to Morena with their seats — and electoral districts — these senators are perhaps not having a great impact right now but are definitely paving the way for the 2018 election when the entire senate will be renewed and the political spectrum will be reshuffled with surely a lot more seats in the entire Congress for Morena.
Definitely PRD is now a badly wounded political animal and has very little future left as Morena keeps eroding its powerbase.
Says former PRD president and honest politician Deputy Agustín Basave that if PRD wants to survive as a minority political party it has to strike an alliance either with right wing National Action Party (PAN) or with Morena itself.
“That’s the only way that political force could stay as an option with capacity to contribute to a change of regime in Mexico. As a party alone it is no longer an option for victory” and with its remaining voting base it can at best keep its registration as a political party.
But would alliances work for what’s left of PRD? That’s a question that will have an answer when the time comes, but as such PRD would have to accept conditioning as now PRD ideologically does not fit in either party.
Current PRD president Senator Alejandra Barrales had to step down after it was made public that she’s a millionaire and even owns a condo in Miami and soon PRD will have to have a new president.
The one fact for the once mighty PRD is that there is continued bickering over ideological priorities as well as the money allowances it gets from the National Electoral Institute and it may only lead to further deterioration.
The party that once was the “united left” in Mexico is now not united at all, and with very little left.
