This phrase was told to me by Dante Delgado the last time I interviewed him after insisting on the advisability of his party, Movimiento Ciudadano (MC), to ally with the PRI-PAN-PRD for the 2024 presidential elections. The national leader of MC over and over again he rejected it. For him, his party had to be different from both the historical parties of the past and the present (Morena). MC is and would be a third option for citizenship.
Perfect. But, if 2024 arrived and it was seen that MC had no chance of winning and yes of dividing the opposition vote and opening the door for Morena to repeat in the Presidency, wouldn’t that party consider allying with the other opposition forces? Faced with my repetitive questioning, Dante expressed the phrase: “politics is not but it continues to be.” I confess that I liked it. Politics is not really carved in stone like a divine word. The policy is changeable depending on the circumstances of the moment. This is how I understood it and, therefore, I interpreted that there was indeed a loophole for the possible alliance of MC with the opposition.
On paper, MC’s strategy of differentiating itself from parties of the past and present does not sound bad. There are many citizens fed up with both. They are disappointed in López Obrador and Morena, but they do not want to vote for the PAN, the PRI or the PRD. MC could fill that gap.
I do not know, however, if it is enough for them to win in 2024. From what I see in the polls, no. Perhaps, in this sense, the emecista bet is in the longer term. Probably by 2030. The problem is that seven years is an eternity in politics. As the song by Pablo Milanés says, “the future will come one day”. If we don’t know what will happen next year, much less in seven. While the future arrives, you have to decide what to do in the present.
For now, it is not seen that MC can grow in these two years. The project still does not look mature. They certainly govern two highly populated states (Jalisco and Nuevo León), but they are far from obtaining more than 7% in the intentions to vote in the national electoral polls.
These votes are not enough to win, but they could make a difference for Morena to win the election in 2024. As it is doing, apparently, in the State of Mexico.
El Universal presented on February 9 the results of two Enkoll polls before and after the pre-campaign for governor in Edomex. Delfina Gómez, from the Morena-Verde-PT alliance, did not grow in voting intentions. She went from 55% in December 2022 to 56% in January 2023.
In second place is Alejandra del Moral from the PRI-PAN-PRD-NA coalition. She grew eight percentage points. She went from 29% to 37% in preferences. In third place is Juan Zepeda from MC who fell from 16% to 7%, a drop of nine percentage points that apparently passed almost entirely to Del Moral.
If Zepeda declined to participate, we would have an even race in Edomex. Assuming Zepeda’s seven points were passed to Del Moral, Delfina would still be in first place but it would change the entire logic of the choice. The campaign would begin with 56% for Gómez and 44% for Del Moral, a distance of 12 points. However, in a couple, everything that one candidate gains is lost by the other. With Del Moral getting six percentage points they would already be tied.
I have no doubt: today, Delfina is the one who should see Zepeda go alone.
The universal also published last week another survey, by Buendía&Márquez, on the election of head of government in Mexico City for 2024. It is a long way off, but it is interesting that the possible MC candidate, Salomón Chertorivski, gets between seven and nine percentage points in the confrontations If the undecided are removed and the voting intentions of the emecist candidate are added to the PAN-PRI-PRD alliance, the election becomes another practically tied couple.
“Politics is not but is being.” Dante and Zepeda have to decide now what they will do in the Edomex. What is at stake is high, among other things, the future of Zepeda, who should not end up as the candidate who scored few points in the election, but was a key factor in dividing the opposition vote and giving the governorship to AMLO’s candidate. .
The same will have to decide, at the time, Chertorivski.
Yes, MC’s bet can be very good for 2030. But how they play in 2023 and 2024 will also define them as a party: if they were the ones who made the fat of AMLO and Morena, or if they fought and allowed the opposition compete seriously against the powerful ruling machine.
Twitter: @leozuckermann
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