Antonio Navalón
Ten days are left to reveal who will win the poll that will designate the defender of the Fourth Transformation or, what is almost the same thing, following September 7, we will know who will be the official heir – in the President’s name – to the country’s destiny. In the beginning, three corcholatas were joined by two others who were the providers of the necessary votes to fulfill Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s maximum program in the Chamber of Deputies. However, the ones predestined to reach the end of the race were and are three.
The first one, the luxury corcholata pointed out as the natural heir according to the President’s designs. The former head of government of Mexico City, Claudia Sheinbaum, seemed to have been born to be the first to end the curse that has haunted Mexico and many other nations of never having had a female president. Then, closely or distantly followed – depending on how one interprets it and having the most extended history of political cooperation with President López Obrador – is Marcelo Ebrard Casaubón.
From the beginning, Marcelo Ebrard was one of the parties that allowed – starting with the original sin of the non-residence in Mexico City of candidate López Obrador – to withdraw in time for courageous honesty to beat Santiago Creel. Undoubtedly, without the relationship between Marcelo and Manuel Camacho Solís, the concatenation of events that suited the then-PRD candidate so well would never have happened.
Marcelo Ebrard was the man who replaced Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador as head of the then Federal District government after Alejandro Encinas’ brief hiatus. Ebrard was the man who made it possible – at significant risk – for the current Mexican leader to continue to have the budget and the means necessary for his social revolution to succeed. He was also the man who would first submit to the rallies in the Zócalo to advocate and ask that López Obrador not be removed from his post. Then, he participated in the exercise in which he demanded, vote by vote, the recount of the elections, and to define the legitimate presidency. Subsequently, he was the one who stood as the guarantor of containing and mitigating the damage that could have been caused to the left by the political transition that took place since Vicente Fox came to power. During that period, someone had to be in charge of guaranteeing the flow of the necessary resources to keep alive the hope and the dream of reaching the top of power in our country of the national regeneration movement headed by López Obrador. And that someone was Marcelo Ebrard.
On the other hand, Ebrard saw the need to resign -by very few votes- from the presidential candidacy in 2012, leaving the way to López Obrador and subsequently going into exile in France. However, as far as we know, it was not a forced exile, nor were any actions that could have endangered his freedom. Given the level of radicalization that the situation in our country can sometimes reach, Ebrard was afraid and worried that he would be the scapegoat and the propitiatory victim of the political consequences of wanting to create a leftist revolution in Mexico.
Finally, there is Adán Augusto López, who was the man who accompanied for many years – thanks to his father’s commiseration – Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s walk, hesitating and circulating between the oil wells of Tabasco and the assault on Paseo de la Reforma. Friend of friends and brother of the soul – as he once called him – Adán was brought to Mexico when the experiments of trying to get people to learn from power by having it failed and deep down, although the president had little intention of sharing his power with anyone, the absence of someone above suspicion who would also receive the charge of the confidence, one of our own, became indispensable. And so Adán became the Secretary of the Interior. And he was the perfect incarnation of what could not be the staging of the 4T neither in the mañanera nor in the afternoon nor at night. Those who have dealt and dialogued with him say that he is the best demonstration of who acts with an iron hand but with a velvet glove.
But, in addition, Adán Augusto had and has something that is the most valuable now that the time of succession in the 4T is approaching. Of the contenders to succeed the president and who could be elected by the will of the people – a clear fact – he is the one who is most confident that by doing whatever he has to do, he will try by all means to safeguard the presidential message, patrimony, family, security and freedom.
Three, there were three, like Elena’s daughters. And only one will be destined to climb the mountain of power. Only a few days are left to find out who is chosen. But, regardless of whether we know, the important thing is to know that at this moment, these three have just passed a series of complex tests—the first competing without competing and the second being adversaries without being able to be so. And, thirdly, to be part of an order and a universe in which, regardless of where the president puts you, something will come your way, and you will continue in politics.
In sports, there is a phrase that I have always liked that says “no pain, no gain” or, translated into Spanish, “sin dolor, no hay recompensa”. A situation arose that could not be less than a dawn reverie impossible or incompatible with the human condition, but the plan went ahead despite this. At the same time, the three were assigned the brutal battle of being but not being, of wanting but not wanting, of going but not shouting, and of making rallies that, in the end, were few rallies; all the rest of us, the country – starting with the president and the political structure of Morena – were presented with the challenging test. The test that has meant living for three months watching them come and go as if it were a game of deaf mutes – and I say this with great gentleness and respect for those who suffer from this condition – but, in the end, the experiment, the relationship and the presidential pre-election that we have lived was only understandable through the language of the other capacities since, from the first moment, they were prevented from having the possibility of their voice raising the necessary decibels to humanize the competition, at least until now.
The final stretch is approaching, and knowing what and who is left is necessary. It is essential to understand what instruments any of the three will use – even though it is very difficult for one of them to prevail, although I am a man who is always open and ready for surprises – to trace the final stretch that will lead them to carry the presidential sash. Whoever is elected to lead the presidential succession and carry out this exercise of human transmutation must be loyal in power and capable of generating illusion and hope that things can be different with a new militant of the 4T.
Andrés Manuel López Obrador has set things and the bar very high since, if one looks objectively at things as they are and ventures to call things by their name, one has no choice but to recognize that this has been the best campaign for President López Obrador. But, the whole assumption of this exercise, of this election and this course, is summarized in the fact that up to this moment – unless imposed by historical circumstance – we continue to base ourselves on the Maderista principle. The principle that dictates “effective suffrage, no reelection”. And as it already happened once with Alvaro Obregón and others who have tried, we will never know in the cavern of the head what can be definitive for a president to maintain effective suffrage, but removing the second part of the phrase and changing it to “yes to reelection”.
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