Ricardo Pascoe Pierce
The document signed by Morena’s pre-candidates and their party supporters demanding the disappearance of the National Electoral Institute (INE) is the continuation of the official strategy, whose final objective is the repudiation of the presidential election results of 2024.
One has to ask oneself: do they really think they will lose the Presidency in 2024 and, therefore, for that not to happen, they have to destroy the electoral body that, due to its trajectory, has earned national and international recognition and respect? Without this destructive work, will Morena lose the elections? The polls do not confirm that analysis, at least at this moment. What could they know, or be foreseeing, about events or situations that could change the national environment?
What does the Morenista document essentially postulate? With the signature of its main “corcholatas” (bottle caps, meaning pre-candidates) except for Ebrard, and Morena’s national and local leaders and legislators, they declare war on INE and commit themselves to achieving its disappearance and the creation of a new electoral body in line with their postulates and ideology. For them, there is no possibility of an autonomous electoral body: either it is subordinated to their interests, or it must be destroyed. On the other hand, the members of a new electoral body must coincide with the postulates of their movement, or they will be considered traitors to the Fatherland. The aberrant thing about their postulates is that they match the anti-democratic spirit that emanates from their pronouncement.
After these postulates that are totally contrary to a democratic society, what comes next? The perspective is clear. The central idea of Morena towards the 2024 elections is to disavow their results, mainly if they are contrary to Morena’s interests and candidates. Morena’s political culture is historically anti-democratic. As a matter of principle, it never acknowledges an electoral defeat, never congratulates a winning opponent, and always prepares protests against what it calls “electoral fraud”.
In the case of losing the elections in 2024, the situation is worse: not only will it not accept its defeat, blaming INE for having acted against it, but it plans a strategy to prevent the handover of power to an opposition candidacy.
We are observing the strategy today in the form of a preliminary rehearsal. The declaration of the Mayan Train as a project under the definition of “national security” to evade any legal challenge to its execution beyond the country’s legal framework is proof not only of the feasibility of ignoring the law but also to test society’s tolerance to such aggressions and barbarities of the authorities concerning the law.
Meanwhile, in collusion with its legislators, the government is preparing a Plan “B” in case Congress does not approve its reforms. They plan to change secondary laws to drastically reduce the budgets of the INE and the Federal Electoral Tribunal (TEPJF), in addition to approving new laws on social communication and government propaganda that will eliminate any interference that the electoral arbitrators may have if government officials or the president himself decided to proselytize outside the pre-campaign and campaign period.
Morena is preparing society for an act of force. Its “moral” argument will be that it has always postulated that INE was illegally allied with the opposition to defeat it at the polls. In the face of such a plot, it judges that its decision to retain power is legitimate with the argument that declaring the opposition the winner is an attack on “national security” given the “illegal” nature of such declaration by the INE. Thus, López Obrador will be able to retain power, in agreement with the Armed Forces, for an indefinite period until the threat to Mexico’s national security “concludes”. And when will that be, you may ask? When López Obrador deems it convenient: one year, five years, ten years?
Apart from the anti-democratic and coup-plotting nature of his intentions, Morena discovers another of its facets: it thinks it is possible that it will lose the presidential elections of 2024 and, therefore, it is preparing to avoid that scenario, by force if necessary.
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