On May 5, PRD celebrated 24 years in Mexican political life. As it usually happens, its anniversary festivities take place in internal divisions. Even though the fragmentation of Mexican left ideology is hardly a novelty, the causes of a division in this particular moment raise questions about whether PRD will endure to celebrate future anniversaries.
PRD faces breaking conditions that are way riskier than, for example, the ones suffered after the 2006 Presidential election. Currently there is no unifying force in all of its groups, as were Andrés Manuel Lopez Obrador and the fraud argument to oppose (almost) anything. Instead, the support given by the PRD´s leadership (headed by Jesús Zambrano) to the Pact for Mexico has caused quarrels within the party. In fact, Marcelo Ebrard, one of the notable absences in the PRD celebration and one of the aspiring politicians in taking the party’s control when the leadership is renewed, has expressed his opposition to the Pact. In the meantime, the current leadership will have to solve its stance on the most polarizing matters of the agreement: energy and taxes. These issues have been the traditional banners of a reluctant leftwing opposition. Turning away from that radicalism could involve PRD in unprecedent changes in Mexico’s recent history at the expense of a large portion of its affiliates. This risk grows with a key figure: the MORENA party (Movement of National Regeneration, for its Spanish acronym).
Even before being a registrated political party, MORENA has already left PRD without several of its militants who are most identified with López Obrador. However, this “drain” could be larger if those Deputies and Senators that are still within the ranks of PRD but sympathize with AMLO decide to become independent politicians and join MORENA when it’s an official party. While this does not occur and as long as López Obrador´s new club does not access public resources, the incentives to abandon PRD (or any of the two Mexican parties that are identified as leftwing) will be low. If MORENA is consolidated, it could represent more of a threat than a benefit to Mexican left.
Paradoxically, PRD has survived due to its ability to keep its institutionality within a fragmentation environment. Over the second half of the 20th century, the different left political currents had difficulties living side by side in a single party up until the breakup of the so-called Democratic Current of PRI. Afterwards, a left front able to compete in elections and with a solid base came together around the figure of Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas. Currently, MORENA not only represents the emergence of a second left bloc that could be similar in size to a weakened PRD but to a very organized competitor in this kind of operation.
Lastly, PRD seems to “sleep with the enemy” by supporting the Pact for Mexico. If the Federal Government continues to be succesful in passing reforms – whether small or large-scale – in tax collecting, this will give more resources to finance programs such as “Without Hunger”. These sort of social aid will compete along with PRD program Redes Ciudadanas (Citizen Networks), specially in the Federal District. Losing that bastion, along with others located in eastern State of Mexico, would be the equivalent of PRD losing its arms and legs.
What cannot be overseen is the way the left has evolved in its content and political offer. Since its birth, PRD added two factions that are like water and oil. One hand, the historical left that gathered different parties and currents arising from communist, trotskyist and working ranks, all of them anti-PRI, along with the leftwing current that abandoned PRI in 1987. Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas managed to keep unity but time led to the existence of two incompatible currents: ex-members of PRI led by López Obrador and an emerging social democracy that attracts a modern segment of society. Divisions carry on, but they evolve and change.
In short, PRD remains divided as it always was, even though that this diversity has historically been one of the reasons of its strength. It remains to be seen if this “tribalization”, with the possible exit of the most radical factions and other members not akin with collaborating with the Pact, will not transform in its tribulation.
CIDAC
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