Guillermo Valdés Castellanos
We must not lose sight of the big picture. Sheinbaum and Morena’s sole objective is to maintain and expand their power (a qualified majority in the Chamber of Deputies, state governorships, mayoral offices, and local legislatures) in the 2027 elections. To that end, they will stop at nothing—legal or illegal. They are using—and will continue to use—all their power without limits or scruples. This is hard-core authoritarianism.
They face two open fronts that jeopardize their objective. The first is the United States, with the issue of drug trafficking and all the associated businesses and ties. The impacts on Morena and its electoral performance could be devastating: a) a significant internal rift if the president yields and hands over Rocha Moya and his associates, or if, in a “every man for himself” atmosphere, denunciations and voluntary turncoats become widespread; b) a negative impact on the image of the 4T, which is already a reality (the labels “narco-party” and “narco-government”), though the extent of this impact and its eventual reflection at the polls remain to be seen.
It is on this front that political battles have been waged since the request for Rocha Moya’s extradition. The judicial accusations brought to the forefront of the debate an issue that had been denounced internally but required Trump’s intervention to prevent Morena from evading it. This refers to the shameless and massive transformation of the 4T into a criminal organization: from alliances with the Sinaloa and CJNG cartels; the dealings of quite a few governors with criminal organizations controlling territory in exchange for electoral victories; and fuel theft in all its forms, which has become the largest theft from the public treasury in the country’s history; the transformation of public works contracts into spoils for AMLO’s children and friends and for some governors, along with Nahle, Adán Augusto, and others.
To try to evade this reality and the political blow it entails, they have attempted to: a) construct an alternative narrative: the 4T is a victim of U.S. interference supported by the Mexican far right—hence the nationalist rhetoric and defense of sovereignty (the attack on Maru Campos); b) create smokescreens by attempting to blame the opposition for being drug traffickers and criminals (imprisoning Ruffo and Aguirre); and c) eliminate freedom of expression to silence the media and critics (guidelines on the right of the audience and Luis María Alcalde’s blacklists).
The problem is that they are losing all three battles. If it was already a stretch to claim that Rocha Moya has no ties to the Sinaloa Cartel, equating national sovereignty with Andy’s visa was a colossal blunder into which the president, Morena’s national leadership, and the party’s governors fell; Sheinbaum had to call a retreat to avoid further ridicule. Ruffo’s imprisonment has become an accusation of partisan abuse of the justice system and the first political prisoner of this administration. This struggle is not over and will be taken to international bodies and media, with a high probability that the government will lose, just as it is doing in the case of enforced disappearances at the UN.
The outcome of these battles has been very negative for them, as shown in the third line of defense: the attempt to curtail free speech through guidelines purportedly designed to protect audiences. This has not gone well for them either, as the justification was so flimsy that the president was forced to acknowledge that the guidelines would need to be corrected; we’ll see how this plays out this week as the public consultation comes to a close. The same can be said of the attempt to turn the growing wave of criticism over the government’s poor performance on all issues (security, Morena’s ties to organized crime, the economy, health, education, etc.) into a conservative conspiracy whose true face is an “ecosystem of digital amplification” touted by Luisa María Alcalde. Raúl Trejo Delarbre’s excellent article in Nexos not only debunked, layer by layer, the lies and inconsistencies of the “ecosystem,” but also confirmed that those at the National Palace no longer know how to defend themselves; it is an acknowledgment that their media and social media strategies, the morning press conferences with all their fanfare, and their intimidation tactics have been outmaneuvered and are no longer effective. Next week, the second front opens: the economy.
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