The political fight between Andrés Manuel López Obrador and PAN member Xóchitl Gálvez is turning what until now were low-intensity internal combat into a true electoral campaign. Complying with the unity mandates, the teams that are competing for the presidency from the official side and from the opposition, remained in a calm tone, but that truce seems called to an end. The president has challenged this Friday the precautions that the INE strives to dictate and has lashed out at the most advanced candidate of the opposition: “Did they say that she is the candidate? We are not yet in elections. Is it that I can’t answer anything? ”, He said. Not only him, the morenistas who hope to succeed him have received the message of the National Palace loud and clear and have begun their attacks on the opposition, where they are not silent either. Santiago Creel, displaced by public opinion with respect to his internal rival, Xóchitl Gálvez, has abandoned the chivalrous tone that defined his political career and has almost shoutedly attacked the morenistas and defended his PAN DNA. The political atmosphere is heating up, as expected, when a campaign for the presidential succession begins early, although until now it has been called something else. And this first explosion is leaving a long shock wave.
Like-minded and opposed have been pointing out these days that López Obrador’s attacks on Xóchitl Gálvez are fanning a fire that can burn more in Morena than in the opposition. Far from being intimidated, López Obrador seems determined to use the blower every day. Today he has insisted on disqualifying the plurality of the opposition’s internal process to select its candidates, arguing that Gálvez is a manufactured product: “They needed someone popular, who had been born in a town. As if people were sucking their thumb. They have tried to see who they are disguising as a popular leader and they are leaving aside [Santiago Creel]. I don’t want to get too involved in that, Santiago is going to get angry ”, he stated in the morning conference. However, it seems that the president’s strategy sought to divide the ranks of the opponent, presenting Creel as a relegated victim of the alleged manipulations of the coalition in the internal process.
The still president of the Chamber of Deputies is angry. His usual polite tone has blown up. With a trembling voice and an angry tone, he has called the president a “disgraceful”, but he also seems to betray annoyance at the media monopoly of his colleague Gálvez, who has no political affiliation, but has received strong support from PAN members, PRI members and PRD members. Creel thanked his co-religionists for their support the day he registered for the contest with an unequivocal message: “I feel his support in my PAN heart.” The deputy has opted for an apocalyptic tone against Morena, to the point of describing it as “the Government of death.” And, always contrary to the PRI, today he does not disdain alliances in order to stop what he has described as a “national emergency.”
López Obrador rejects Creel’s disqualifications of the Government, but his cannons continue to point at Xóchitl Gálvez, whom he accuses of being used by the opposition to falsify his supposed naturalness and humble origin. This Friday he made fun of some images and behaviors of the woman from Hidalgo: “I get on a bicycle, I get on a tricycle, tamales, tamales, delicious tamales; I say a few rude things… But if he barely won in the Hills, where the richest live, but what about the Chiapas mountains, when has Xóchitl gone to the Chiapas mountains, to Porvenir, to Motozintla? The president has conjured up the ghost of a candidate who claims to be close to the people, defending that politics is a matter of “convictions, principles and ideals. She has been next to Fox, imagine, and Claudio X González. They are wrong wanting to scam the people.
caps react
The expansive wave of the lawsuit between López Obrador and Gálvez has become evident among the caps of Morena and Va por México, who have understood that the media focus is there and who have interpreted the speech from the National Palace as a signal to get on the ring. As the leader in most of the polls, Claudia Sheinbaum had opted for a discreet strategy and away from controversy with her fellow party members, but her team has understood that the political moment requires her to kill two birds with one stone: regain notoriety and demonstrate her loyalty to the president in the midst of the clash.
“There is nothing new there, only the previous regime, that of corruption and that of privileges,” said the former head of government in a video entitled “Unity against the cynical opposition bloc.” Sheinbaum mocked this week the internal contention of Va por México and said that if the opposition returned to the Government, the PRI member Alejandro alito Moreno was going to be “Finance Coordinator”; former President Felipe Calderón, “responsible for the peace building program”; Vicente Fox, “of democracy”, and Santiago Creel, the head of “art and theater”.
Creel’s histrionics, who reached the point of tears and delivered an unusually risque speech when registering as an opposition candidate, seems to be another side effect of the clash between López Obrador and Gálvez. The legislator, tempted several times by López Obrador to confront Gálvez, has preferred, however, to go on the offensive against his rivals from Morena. “Marcelo, the only thing you do is overwhelm the country and the people,” he has reproached Ebrard, whom he has accused of being “subject to his leader.” The former foreign minister, who until a few days ago indicated that he “did not care” who the opposition candidate was, snapped at the deputy: “Santiago, you have never won elections.”
“It is a shame that he campaigns from the presidency of the Board of Directors of the Chamber of Deputies,” declared Adán Augusto López so as not to be left behind. “We are going to beat them anyway,” said the former Secretary of the Interior on his social networks. The entrance of the caps opponents of the race before the 2024 elections has raised the curtain for the crossing of disqualifications and attacks typical of a campaign. It is, in fact, the beginning of the contest and also an opportunity for the candidates to increase their visibility and turn that popularity into voting intentions, a crucial aspect in their political ambitions.
The candidates for Morena have understood that they can no longer turn their backs on what their rivals are doing, who these days have taken the spotlight from them, moreover, without the wear and tear of having had a leading role in the campaign for several months. Those of Va por México, for their part, have realized that their supporters want a figure who can fight with the Obradorista candidates, beyond ideological or party affinities. It is what had catapulted Senator Lilly Téllez and, now, her fellow bench member Xóchitl Gálvez. The lawsuit has awakened both sides, but the challenge is to sustain the strategy in the almost two months that still remain until the finish line.
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