Ricardo Pascoe Pierce
Yesterday, the new organization, SOMOS MX, aspiring to become a political party, held its founding congress in Mexico City. According to multiple media reports, it managed to secure the required number of members for legal registration: more than 300,000. It also held meetings in more than 200 electoral districts, as required by law for registering new political parties.
News reports also highlighted who attended the event, noting that Guadalupe Acosta Naranjo was elected party president and Cecilia Soto was elected secretary general. Three former justices of the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation (SCJN) were presented as members of the new party’s Citizen Advisory Council. Several party members stood out as former members of electoral bodies, such as Leonardo Valdés, Marco Antonio Baños, Rodrigo Morales, Edmundo Jacobo, and Roberto Heycher Cardiel. Emilio Álvarez Icaza has been a central figure in the formation of the new party.
At the same time that SOMOS MX was holding its inaugural congress, the party Construyendo Sociedades de Paz (Building Peaceful Societies), whose acronym President Sheinbaum challenged CSP for suggesting was a presidential project, was also holding its inaugural congress. Its congress agreed to change the name to PAZ (PEACE). However, its attachment to Morena’s interests remained clear.
In the media and on social networks, the advent of SOMOS MX was met with two opposed interpretations. Given its definition as a party with an agenda contrary to Morena’s authoritarian drift, the new party rejected any label of “left” or “right” as the axis of its platform. It declared itself in favor of ending the authoritarianism of the 4T and the “co-government” between AMLO and Sheinbaum. It claimed that the 4T is closely associated with organized crime. Part of the press, organically associated with the government, such as La Jornada, among others, described SOMOS MX as a right-wing party, due to the presence of former PAN members and former SCJN justices among those in attendance.
Of course, they did not say the same about Morena as a right-wing party when two former national presidents of the PAN served in AMLO’s government. What is relevant is their eagerness to apply the label of a “right-wing party” to the new organization, responding to Morena’s electoral strategy. Another criticism of the new party pointed out that its members were “old and recycled politicians” from other parties. That fact, that of having long-standing political experience, means that they do not have the credentials of naivety to be able to claim that they represent something authentically new. The disqualification is appropriate under this criterion because experience excludes the ability to generate something new and useful to society. In this position, the only valid thing would be to form a party with members who have blank minds: tabula rasa, as philosophers would say. That is, nothing in mind. As if we had not learned anything from AMLO’s “90% loyalty, 10% experience,” which only plunged the country into a systemic crisis.
Contrary to these statements, the new organization has the potential to combine what has been tried in the past (with varying success) with what is feasible in the country’s current circumstances. The lessons of the past are the fertilizer for future successes. The assembly brought together experience with the desire to try new paths. Starting with the refusal to accept the traditional labels of “left” or “right,” considering them anachronistic.
The Pink Tide is a good example. It represented a diverse social energy, but there was no one to articulate it with core ideas so that its expression would have a greater impact. Today, the combination of experience and a willingness to try new tactics and strategies opens the door for SOMOS MX to become a hub for new democratic forces in Mexico. Let’s give it the chance to try out the new path it is proposing for Mexico.
@rpascoep
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