Ricardo Pascoe Pierce
The Pink Tide and the Morena party faced each other in a competition to establish the importance of their respective conceptions of the world. In the first round, they compared something apparently mundane but not so mundane: how did the demonstrators arrive at the capital’s Zócalo?
What is essential in this point is whether they arrived on their own feet by private vehicle or public transportation or whether they arrived on out-of-state buses and buses rented by some official or partisan body. Of course, this matters because these buses brought many people from neighboring states (the States of Mexico, Hidalgo, and Morelos). What is relevant is the motivation to attend the capital’s Zócalo.
In the case of the Pink Tide, the great majority arrived on their own, either in private vehicles or by public transportation. On that day, the authorities did not raise the national flag and did not open the Metro stations near the Zócalo to make it difficult for people to arrive. The same did not happen last Friday during the Morenista rally. On the contrary, foreign buses stopped on Tlalpan so their passengers could comfortably reach the Zócalo by Metro.
The Pink Tide event was on Sunday, February 18. Attending an event on a Sunday, the usual day of rest, speaks of the attitude of the multitude gathered at the Zócalo that Sunday, of conviction and willingness to sacrifice rest for a higher goal.
The Morenista event was on a working Friday, March 1, to bring people from their workplaces to the Zócalo, which made it easier to cover the quotas of souls that each Morenista state had to get to the rally. Attending the event was a labor obligation. There were even the unwary managers of work units or schools who gave written instructions to their subordinates that their attendance was mandatory. Of course, those notices appeared circulating in the social networks.
Attending one and the other event had, then, a seminal difference. The motivation was different. The Pink Tide came coated with an ethical conviction that they were defending a cause that was not only just but decisive for the country’s future, their families, and their children. On the other hand, the Morenistas arriving at the Zócalo threatened that they could lose their jobs if they did not attend. The problem for the Morenistas was not the country and its future. The problem was their jobs and, therefore, their immediate future. That is another kind of motivation.
The Pink Tide rang the first bell of the campaign by calling to the Zócalo on February 18, when the electoral process was governed by obscure and confusing “inter-campaigns.” She set the bar high for all, both Tyrians and Trojans. Morena took the baton and wanted to face that citizen tide a couple of weeks later. Politically, what did it mean that Sheinbaum started her campaign in the Zócalo, challenging the Pink Tide?
The Pink Tide event was made up of citizens of Mexico City. They did not come from neighboring states to ensure a full Zócalo, as Morena had to do for their photograph. So, symbolically, what Sheinbaum did was not start a national campaign but confront and fight with the voters of Mexico City, where a great majority considers her a failed and unattractive governor.
Obviously, the city government offered fewer attendees to the Marea Rosa event and a higher number to the Morena event. There is no way to expect honesty in this waltz of figures. What is relevant is what the two rallies expressed about the future of Mexico City.
As happened in the 1997 elections, the social mood in the capital city was clearly to vote against the State party and its dilapidated regime with no promise for the future, trapped in its morass of corruption and with a strong internal decomposition. This is clearly perceived when contrasting the two conceptions of Mexico confronting each other in the ring of the capital’s Zócalo.
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