Senior figures in Mexico’s two main opposition parties have criticized President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador’s National Regeneration Movement (Morena) for jump-starting the 2024 presidential electoral process before the official start of campaigning.
At least four Morena hopefuls recently resigned their posts and last weekend appeared to go into full campaign mode in different parts of Mexico.
Most opposition parties and political observers are skeptical about Morena’s argument that the 70-day period during which their contenders will “tour” the country is not campaigning at all, but simply a period in which they will hold meetings with party members and the Mexican people to explain how they intend to advance President Lopez Obrador’s “Fourth Transformation,” the generalized term given to the federal government’s policies to end corruption, grow the economy, reduce violence, build infrastructure, and expand social programs designed to reduce poverty and inequality.
The “meetings,” or rather rallies that the contenders held last weekend in different parts of the county are “a clear violation of the law,” said Alejandro “Alito” Moreno Cárdenas, national president of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI). The leader of the National Action Party (PAN), Marko Cortés Mendoza, called Morena’s tactics “cynical and corrupt,” and designed to give AMLO’s party an unfair early advantage. He said he believed Morena was setting up an election apparatus that could be manipulated by the federal government in the same way the PRI operated for decades.
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