Morena sets another trap for the PRI

Deputy Alejandro Moreno, the national leader of the PRI, often describes himself as a “professional politician.” Alito, as he is also known in the corridors of San Lázaro, presents himself as a full-time politician; someone with the ability to build and respect agreements with those who have different interests or positions.

However, the office of the politician also supposes the ability to avoid mistreatment; the nose to reject agreements that are apparently very attractive, but that reduce your political capital. Alito fell into one of these traps, woven by his own inexperience.

He took the pressure off President López Obrador to convert the National Guard into a professionalized public security body subject to civilian command, before the end of his six-year term. The Tabasco politician may end his term without any real progress in carrying out this constitutional mandate.

Thanks to the votes of the PRI in Congress, López Obrador will inherit whoever succeeds him in the presidency an army in the streets and a National Guard militarized to the core. He will also leave behind him the macabre record of violent deaths in a six-year term, an indisputable sign of a failed security policy.

Little seems to have won Alito’s PRI in return. The army is grateful, but the sympathy of the generals is of no use in winning elections. The attacks of Layda Sansores, the governor of Campeche, will continue at will. The files are still open in the prosecutor’s offices and can be reactivated at any time. There is no guarantee that political harassment and persecution will stop.

A good agreement should, in principle, strengthen those who sign it. But the initiative to extend the participation of the armed forces in police work for four more years put Alito’s PRI in a situation of greater weakness. Instead of professionalism, his performance reflects pusillanimity. Instead of respect, he got the disdain of his counterpart.

This is how the secretary of the interior, Adán Augusto López, made it clear when referring to Alito in a sarcastic tone during the private meeting with deputies from Morena, PT and the Green Party in San Lázaro. He revealed that they had an understanding with the PRI leader regarding López Obrador’s frustrated electricity reform. Then he made fun of him because the senator of the Green Party, Manuel Velasco, recorded their conversations.

But the biggest sign that Alito’s PRI transmits weakness has been the reactivation of López Obrador’s electoral reform initiative in the Chamber of Deputies. The president’s political operators are convinced that based on harassment and intimidation they can get the votes of the PRI –and part of the PRD– to approve the constitutional changes ordered from the National Palace.

With great skill, Adán Augusto López told the media that there is a governance agreement between Morena and the PRI. “We are going to try to build a real electoral reform,” said the tenant of the Cobián palace. He even spoke of “recovering other issues such as the electrical reform.” He made many nervous.

But electoral reform is a Pandora’s box for the PRI. Alito knows that there is hardly any possible agreement on the proposals presented by President López Obrador. If he opens it, he may end up handing over power in perpetuity to the 4T and re-establish the “perfect dictatorship”, now based on Morena’s hegemony.

For this reason, Alito came out to deny the alleged agreement with Morena regarding an electoral reform. He said that the PRI would not support any change that would undermine the autonomy of the INE or the Electoral Tribunal. His word, however, has lost all credibility. It was the cost of his political adventure in favor of prolonging the militarization of public security. Now he has a chance to get her back at least partially, if he resists the temptation and rejects the trap that Morena sets for him again.

*Professor at CIDE.

Twitter: @BenitoNacif