If all goes as programmed Tuesday the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) will have a new leader.
Now former Federal Electricity Commission CEO Enrique Ochoa Reza has been appointed by President Enrique Peña Nieto as the man who will guide the PRI into the 2017 and 2018 electoral processes.
Ochoa comes to replace Manlio Fabio Beltrones, another of Peña Nieto’s men who failed miserably in the past June 5 elections in which the PRI lost seven out of 12 states to opposition National Action Party (PAN).
Upon accepting the nomination to become PRI president, Ochoa Reza said that his tenure is based in the achievements of President Peña Nieto during his 44-month old tenure.
“We have the largest asset of all this. We’ve got the President of the Republic, we have the public policies President Peña Nieto has pushed for, and we have to explain them better,” Ochoa Reza said last Friday upon accepting the appointment.
Ochoa Reza, 43, is one of the youngest people to reach the post and truth be told, his political inexperience seems appalling to many a PRI member, as his main experience stems not from hands-on political maneuvering but mostly as administrative manager, particularly in the energy sector in which he was among the authors of President Peña’s Education and Energy Reforms.
As usual with any chess move the president makes at PRI, in theory many of the stalwart organizations that make the corporate base of the party, such as the Mexican Workers’ Confederation (CTM) or the National Confederation of Popular Organizations (CNOP), immediately backed the appointment.
Yet there is reportedly unhappiness galore with the way things have been going under Peña Nieto, and many see that Ochoa Reza may not be able to contain them or, as he puts it, “better explain things to them.”
Also, the president being “an asset” is under question, because Ochoa Reza takes the helm of the still largest political party in Mexico at a moment when — or so say the most recent polls — the president’s popularity is at an all-time 63 percent low and going down.
Several of the reasons why the president’s popularity has plummeted are the failure in successfully implementing the Education and Energy Reforms and the problems they have brought about. The two latest are the much talked about teachers’ revolt against the Education Reform and the economic failure of the Energy Reform with the latest increase in the prices of electricity and gasoline.
When pushing for them, President Peña Nieto repeated that “the prices of fuel and electricity will go down.”
Also it will be up to Ochoa Reza to “better explain” why the president is covering up for the alleged corrupt performances of three governors in which the PRI was booted out of power, such as in the states of Chihuahua, Quintana Roo and Veracruz.
These two anomalies are just for starters but there is many more in store due to the president’s dwindling popularity.
But what’s most important for Ochoa Reza in the near future are the 2017 elections for governor in the states of Coahuila, Nayarit and State of Mexico, the three of which are solid PRI bastions. In theory, PRI should win them hands down. Nevertheless, in the June 5 popular verdict, in other PRI bastions such as Veracruz and Quintana Roo, people turned their backs on President Peña Nieto appointed candidates.
But most important will be establishing the foundations for a solid 2018 presidential election so that the president can keep his word that “I will not let go of our stronghold” and have the PRI continue its reign over the nation.
In short, Enrique Ochoa Reza has a tough nut to crack.
