The internal leadership election for Mexico’s old ruling party was won 10 days ago by the governor of the southern state of Campeche, who is seen as close to current President Andres Manuel López Obrador.
Gov. Alejandro Moreno (aka “Alito”), had a wide victory in the vote to lead the Institutional Revolutionary Party (easily defeating his rival ex Yucatan governor Ivonne Ortega).
The “Partido Revolucionario Institucional” ruled Mexico from 1929 to 2000, then regained the presidency in 2012-2018. López Obrador’s crushing victory last year stunned the PRI.
According to experts, Moreno’s victory suggests the PRI may become a sort of loyal opposition or satellite party for López Obrador. The president’s own Morena party lacks the PRI’s experience, discipline and political machinery.
In a speech claiming victory, Moreno pledged that under his leadership, the PRI would be “a strong, critical assertive opposition.”
Having a loyal opposition would help López Obrador deflect accusations that he is concentrating too much power in his own hands. The president has been hostile to the press, as weel as to oversight and regulatory agencies, calling them “FIFIS“, overpaid and wasteful.
A former PRI member himself, López Obrador may have more in common with the old, charismatic style of the PRI than he does with disparate collection of ideologues and mid-level opposition figures from which he cobbled together the Morena party.
The Yucatan Times Newsroom with information from AP
