Candidate Claudia Sheinbaum maintains that, if she wins, she would imprint her style on a continuity government.
Despite this, doubts persist about the shadow cast by the current President, the first since Lázaro Cárdenas to leave the National Palace with a social leadership that is not expected to be diluted when someone else sits in the eagle’s chair.
AMLO created a movement in his image and likeness. The momentum of this has been translated into governorships, local deputies and municipalities; and on June 2 it will be validated in the renewal or conquest of a handful of states, and of the first bench in the Congress of the Union.
Although his standard-bearers suffered significant setbacks on June 2 (including, we speculate, a defeat in the capital of the Republic), if things continue as van Andrés Manuel will close his government on the last day of September, far from an electoral or image crisis.
Whether or not upon handing over the band he retires to tropical life is a separate speculation; But since he has already announced that he will reaffirm his bond with those who applaud practically every decision with a goodbye tour, it is clear that on October 1 he will continue to be the leader of the movement.
Therefore, on this occasion the real transfer of power from one president to another (to another in this case), beyond the formality of the protest before Congress, lies in knowing who will decide in the years to come, in everyday life. and strategically, in movement.
Sheinbaum is very clear that movement is a word that defines something that goes beyond his party. The candidate knows that there are people who are active in what López Obrador promotes regardless of wanting to get closer to or belong to Morena.
In that sense, the party is one of the instruments of the movement. Not a minor one, but not the only one. The movement is, of course and above all, the people, the street.
To underline how powerful AMLO’s ability to get people to follow him has been, let us remember that once at the call of the Tabasco native, the López Obradoristas left the PRD as a shell (and a decade later their new party was the hegemonic force).
In a country educated (that is to say) by the PRI on the grid, a Morenoist presidential succession opens a crucial question: who will rule the official party? Will what happened in the tricolor era be repeated, when the head of the party and the government was one, as, in fact, it is today?
Starting on October 1, what will that Chinese vase called Andrés Manuel do with himself so as not to get in the way, so as not to be the living reminder that the mandate revocation exists and he has all the capacity to mobilize?
Part of the answer lies in whether Sheinbaum will manage to win the match; not only in front of the person who founded the movement, but – just as important – in front of López Obrador cadres who will feel empowered to influence the direction.
Will eminently López Obrador leaderships accept to undergo a process they have never experienced: shedding their skin, changing leaders?
Or will they want to be, at the cost of deaf or noisy confrontation, the defenders of the doctrine on anything that the winner of Morena intends to promote?
Before predicting whether Claudia and AMLO will distance themselves, clash or be subordinated to him, Sheinbaum must make good his leadership in the party, in which some teammates will tell him, when he resists: you didn’t win, we won chimosabi; and in the movement we do not succeed alone, but thanks to you know who.
