Ricardo Pascoe Pierce
The opposition must create a new platform providing political cohesion for its 2024 presidential candidacy. Its political-programmatic cohesion will make it easier to define the candidacy. Without resolving the organizational issue of how to build consensus on its programmatic proposal and how to build a unity government in a coalition, it will be practically impossible to agree on a common presidential candidacy.
The opposition feels pressured by Morena, given that the latter is advancing with its pre-candidacies and gives the impression that it lags in the political process. But the opposition is in a very different approach than Morena.
Morena is not discussing its programmatic postulates or the construction of new governance. Its underlying programmatic thesis, with which all pre-candidates seem to agree, is that everything is going well in the country, and it is simply necessary to continue along the same route. Instead, it is arguing the popularity of one candidacy against the other. They are having a beauty contest (believe it or not!). In that process, its allies will accept whatever the contest owner says.
The opposition has, at this moment, different challenges than Morena. Therefore, it must feel pressured, yes, but for other reasons. It must build a political instrument, which does not yet exist, that allows for bringing together the entire opposition in a complete and articulated manner. The Va Por México organization, which brings together three parties, is a crucial step in the right direction. But for the purposes of the 2024 presidential election, it is not enough. It is not enough because it is still too small a house.
The enormous validity of the Va Por México coalition is crystallized in maintaining the Constitutional Moratorium until 2024 and resisting the legal attacks that Morena will undertake against the National Electoral Institute (INE) in budgetary matters as the local government has already done against the Electoral Institute of Mexico City. That was the test of how to weaken an electoral body if it cannot be eliminated.
But the opposition urgently needs to build a new unified platform with the four parties with legal registration (and, if you please, with a fifth one) where all of them are the authors of the work. It is not a matter of some joining the others. No. It is about creating a new unified instrument designed to go together in the presidential election of 2024.
Furthermore, this new opposition platform must include Mexico’s new expressions of organized civil society. Therein lies the great and recent novelty in national politics. Throughout the length and breadth of the country, organizations of citizens concerned and moved by their local, state, and national conflicts have emerged. We are talking about millions of women and men who work and organize themselves in their communities, localities, ranches, towns, neighborhoods, villages, and small, medium, and large cities. Throughout the country, there are these efforts to articulate ideas, proposals, solutions, and visions of a future different from the one offered by the incumbent government and its party. And from this citizen encounter has emerged a conviction that citizen commitment goes beyond immediacy and commits to the country’s future today.
The hope of society raised by the promise of the Morenistas turned into despair and gave way to a new disappointment. Those who said they were not the same turned out to be the same and, in some cases, worse. However, by the very psychological complexion of Mexicans, the disappointment did not turn into apathy or cynicism. Today it is turning into a citizens’ organization willing to work, without remuneration and humility, to build a new and better Mexico. No one longs for the past, nor do they want to stay where we are today. People want to move forward. In that sense, the Mexican people are exemplarily enterprising and forward-looking.
Some citizen organizations are publicly known and recognized for their solvency and rectitude, all of which were recently created. For example, Sí Por México, Frente Cívico Nacional, México Unido, Sociedad Civil, Mexicanos Por México, Former Governors, among many others. All of them, and more, should be part of the new platform designed to give rise to national reconstruction. The platform should contemplate not only the inclusion of the parties but also the enormous citizen energy that has been deployed in recent times.
Faced with the selection of a populist President willing to destroy institutions without creating new and better ones, as well as ignoring the rule of law, the response from the opposition is to take on the task of national reconstruction. This should be their essential offer for 2024: the reconstruction of the rule of law, transparency and the consolidation of autonomous bodies to monitor and control public officials and their conduct in the exercise of public funds, independence among the three branches of government and the healthy practice of plural, informed debate with the full intention of reaching consensus on public affairs. Furthermore, it is time to rescue the country from so much violence against women, journalists, and economic sectors ravaged by organized crime. It will also be time to rescue our country’s international image, which the President’s irresponsible behavior has badly damaged. As can be seen, the task of national reconstruction will require the support of the entire citizenry due to the titanic magnitude of the effort.
Thus, while Morena continues with its beauty and popularity contest, the opposition must build its new platform to reach a consensus on its proposal for national reconstruction and the creation of a government of national unity. By having this solid platform, it will be on the best terms to agree on the presidential candidacy capable of embodying this great project for the future of Mexico.
[email protected]
@rpascoep