The illness of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, covid-19 and the heart condition resulting from it, substantially modified the road map of the presidential succession. Prior to the weekend where the entire future changed, there had already been a first adjustment so that the succession process was decided in August. But after the president’s health incident on Sunday, the strategy was revolutionized, evolved and all kinds of scenarios were opened within the National Palace so that they could be implemented at the time.
Part of it wanted to expose himself to the governors of Morena summoned in the National Palace, but it is not known if they finally considered it. The meeting, scheduled 10 days ago, went formally as planned, but without the presence of President López Obradoror from a videotaped message, as some of the governors had suggested the possibility the day before.
The meeting was officially about security and shielding of social programs, and was headed by the Secretary of the Interior and interim president, Adán Augusto López; the Secretary of Public Security, Rosa Icela Rodríguez, and the Undersecretary of the Interior in charge of human rights, Alejandro Encinas, who, due to the issues and format, was the only one who did not fit in at the meeting.
The contingency plans have been drawn up in the form of scenarios in the National Palace and do not have an implementation date, because it depends on the recovery of López Obrador’s health and the order and rhythm that he wants to give them. The president reappeared yesterday in the afternoon through a long video recorded in the National Palace, where he resumed his customary narrative of disqualification and misrepresentation of the facts, as happened in my case when referring to the column on Tuesday, where he lied in the central point of the text that indicated that the covid-19 and his heart condition did not put him in danger.
The president’s video will help put out the fire that was growing for him poor crisis management of your team, which rose when it did not appear in any format at the meeting of governors, where the expectation had been generated – not deliberately, but because they did not know how to deactivate it in the National Palace – that it would make an appearance, even if it was through a video. The meeting with the governors was important, because they play a highly significant role in contingency plans.
The idea is to reorganize the territorial operation for the elections, and convert them into state operators, adding them to the Welfare super-delegates, who are in charge of the social/customer programs in each entity and the electoral rolls. The structure is expected for the presidential election next year, because for the elections in the state of Mexico, López Obrador held eight secretaries of state and trusted collaborators of the entity responsible for several weeks, dividing the entity by region to guarantee the victory of Delfina Gomez.
If you follow the medical instructionsLópez Obrador is expected to gradually reduce the pace of work. In recent weeks he has taken some measures, such as avoiding commercial flights as much as possible – to reduce stress and improve his eating habits – to allow him to finish his presidential term without major shocks. In any case, in accordance with one of the points of the contingency plan, described by one of those involved, the the possibility that for medical reasons an orderly substitution process could take place.
The president’s state of health does not mean any serious problem at the moment, but rest is essential. In the medium and long, however, the rhythm and intensity with which he acted, does not seem possible to maintain. In the most dramatic scenario, according to the considerations, a substitute president would enter as the law establishes. Article 84 of the Constitution establishes that whoever is in charge of the Ministry of the Interior would assume ownership of the Executive Branch provisionally for a maximum of 60 days, after which a qualified majority of the Congress of the Union, constituted as an Electoral College, would vote in secret for a substitute.
In parallel, although apparently by coincidence, the Senate is analyzing in commissions the reform initiative to Article 84 presented in November by PT members Geovanna Bañuelos, Cora Cecilia Pinedo and Joel Padilla, where the substitute or substitute of the president, is not designated by the Congress of the Union but by elected by the vote of the citizenswith an extension of the presidential term of two years, which would mean the organization of a new presidential election.
According to the current law, a substitute cannot make adjustments in the cabinet, unless he had the authorization of the Senate, which is why a change in the first level of the administration is being considered in the scenarios, as the substitute figure introduces a lot of noise. because the Secretary of the Interior, Adán Augusto López, is one of the chosen pre-candidates. The change of cabinet would allow him to remain in the presidential race, because although there are precedents in Guerrero and Yucatán, where the substitutes Ángel Eladio Aguirre and Víctor Cervera claimed that they would not be considered for re-election and were able to contest the gubernatorial election, the dynamics internal in Morena and the closest environment of the president, make a similar process much more complex.
The actions proposed in the scenarios developed in the National Palace, require an advance of succession. Morena plans to issue the call in July to designate the party’s champion through a survey. According to this calendar, there will be a first survey between August and September to refine the list of applicants, and have a second survey to define the candidacy no later than December. Now nothing is clear except the certainty that the process will go ahead.
The how and from when will depend on López Obrador. His reappearance dispels the confusion and restores certainty, which generated the lack of a communication strategy and lousy crisis management. The activation of the plan is in his hands.
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