The last few hours of the Mexican electoral campaign have unfolded like a sitcom. First Luis Donaldo Colosio came on stage to suggest that the third candidate in the running, that is, his partner Jorge Álvarez Máynez, could decline in favor of the second, Xóchitl Gálvez; The leader of the PRI, Alito Moreno, finished off the move by calling an important press conference: in response to the conditions imposed by Máynez, he offered his leadership in the party and his candidacy for the Senate if he declined before the last debate. Máynez quickly responded: “And your snow, what do you want it for?” Colosio closed the loop: “The third debate is still missing, let’s give ourselves the opportunity…”. The three have wrapped themselves in the flag to say that their decisions are driven by the greater good of Mexico. A common rhetoric that hides the desperate movement of those who see that their time is running out. Gálvez is still more than 20 points behind the leader, Claudia Sheinbaum, and Máynez is even further away with less than three weeks until the elections.
The latest movements on the Mexican political scene point to a struggle between two blocs: the ruler and the opposition, with no room for a third party, but that candidate exists and his name is Jorge Álvarez Máynez, representative of Movimiento Ciudadano, on whom the rumors are raining pressure from his own and others to get out of the race. The leader of the PRI, embroiled in a thousand battles, has taken out the calculator: if they all unite against Morena, the ruling party, he assures that they could defeat him: 21 million votes compared to 23, according to his count. But that is not what the polls say, which give the Morenoist candidate Claudia Sheinbaum a more than enough difference. “Why the polls if we have the results of the last elections?” Moreno said this Tuesday in a meeting with international correspondents, referring to the bite that the opposition took in parliament. “There are only two country projects, two blocks and we have to reach Sunday’s debate in those two well-consolidated blocks.” And he began the countdown: his offer to take a back seat in politics, “like another soldier,” will self-destruct before Sunday.
But the compact block that Alito speaks of is not such, his has once again been a solo cycling escapade. There has been no joint negotiation with the Citizen Movement on the part of the opposition coalition, as far as is known. When Máynez launched his order days ago, he not only asked the PRI to step away from his duties and his candidacy for the Senate, he also demanded it from the head of the PAN, Marko Cortés, who until now has not said this is mine. “Everyone has to make their decision,” Alito concluded. It is worth asking, then, what Moreno expects from this move. Asked about the possibility that it may be too late for the Citizen Movement to take the step back that is requested, the leader of the tricolor assured that he does not have to remove Máynez’s name from the electoral ballot, but rather lend all his strength and his campaign advertising in favor of Xóchitl Gálvez and, later, “dedicate himself to Congress.” Congress, that is, the seats that both parties get in the Chambers, will undoubtedly be one of the keys to these elections before the end of López Obrador’s mandate and an opportunity to play with support. Moreno’s departure, which has plunged his allies into a thick silence, has placed the focus on the PRI itself, but also on the Citizen Movement.
The PRI member has not spoken with Colosio either, he assures, whom he asks to explain himself “clearly,” because the Emecista left it up in the air at first who should decline in favor of unity, whether his partner Máynez or the candidate Gálvez . This Tuesday he asked both of them, whoever raises their hand first, and everyone will know, he added, “to recognize the political maturity and sense of responsibility” of whoever sacrifices themselves. But Colosio also asked the referee that Alito Moreno has become for time for a few hours: “The third presidential debate is still missing, let’s give ourselves the opportunity to finish listening to the proposals, let’s contrast, let’s make the best decision.” Moreno is not going to wait. “To the Citizen Movement I say: there will not be 2030 without first going through 2024 and Mexico will not endure six more years of tragedy. Whose side are they on?”
To make matters worse, Máynez has not only rejected the PRI’s offer, but has expanded his demands: now he is not satisfied with Moreno stepping aside, he wants his place to be occupied by Beatriz Paredes, to negotiate with her, eventually, after the last debate. Paredes competed with Xóchitl Gálvez for the candidacy and was unseated by her own party before the consultations planned in that process were completed. Maybe she doesn’t want to play anymore, neither on her team nor on the one opposite. For Moreno, the response that Máynez has given to his “serious proposal” is “pathetic.” “This is not a binge watching football from the box,” she reproached him.
The candidate from the opposition bloc has expressed herself much more tempered: “I think it is time for all of us to think about what we want, for Mexico to move towards another place, to sit down, calm down, not disqualify ourselves and see if we can build a great agreement,” she said. Gálvez, who has maintained a day and a half of prudent silence since Colosio uncovered the box of declensions in his own trench. Gálvez has valued the step taken by Moreno as a “gesture of political height”, which leaves the ball in the court of Marko Cortés, who has not yet declared anything on the matter. Gálvez has only mentioned the possibility of “a great agreement.”
Looking at the controversy that more than uniting seems to divide the opposition, the Morenoist Claudia Sheinbaum, victorious in the polls, interprets that this phenomenal entanglement only means that those “on the other side have already recognized their defeat, they are already fighting over who resigns for whom ”.
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