Wednesday, July 8, 2009
Taking Sides
In the dispute between the moderate leadership and the more extreme left represented by AMLO, it's never been entirely clear where Marcelo Ebrard has come down, but his inlination has always seemed more toward ALMO. Another illustration of that: in his comments on the PRD's electoral performance, Ebrard called the internal dispsutes a "grave error" and seemed to blame them entirely on Jesús Ortega, rather than López Obrador.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
4 comments:
Seems to me the question is whether this seeming inclination has any real ideological grounding or is just a ploy to stay off AMLO's enemies list until, say, late 2010. As many have noted,Ebrard is running for prez, which will likely lead to a moment of reckoning with AMLO at some point since the Tropical Messiah shows little sign of losing his fire. Maybe Ebrard thinks that by the time things really heat up next year AMLO will have dug his grave even deeper and may be even less dangerous to cross on the left. There's not much upside to throwing his lot in with the Chuchos at this point.
To be honest, I don't know what Ebrard's plan is. I'm assuming everything he's doing has more of a strategic motive than an ideological one, which of course may be incorrect. Whatever the case, that moment of reckoning with ALMO is inevitably going to be ugly. I think he should get it over with as soon as possible, and hope to a) recapture some the support he'll lose from the left, and b) start making in-roads into Peña Ñieto and PAN territory in the center. (Again, ideology may prohibit B, at least to a certain degree.) Both of those are going to take some time, so I think he should be laying the groundwork for a break as soon as possible. I agree that now may not be the best time to double-down on the Chuchos, but it seems like they both share in the blame for the PRD's performance (and if you take a long enough view, I'd say it was far more AMLO's responsibility). A statement criticizing both sides and staking out a sort of third way for the Mexican left would have been my choice.
Maybe Ebard thinks he can make the break a bit smoother if he handles it right, or maybe AMLO made a promise to him not to run, or maybe Ebrard himself won't run, I really have no idea.
An interesting graphic in one of the big D.F. dailies - I think El Universal - showed the PRD winning 12 of the 16 D.F. boroughs, with the PAN taking three, and the PT (Lopez Obrador's gallo, "Juanito") taking Iztaplapa. Of those 12 PRD boroughs, the United Left faction of Alejandro Encinas and Lopez Obrador took 10, meaning that the New Left of Lopez Obrador enemy and PRD president Jesus Ortega controls just two boroughs: Venustiano Carranza and Milpa Alta, the latter being mostly rural and thinly populated.
Adding to the problems of Jesus Ortega, his PRD faction lost the suburbs of Neza and Ecatepec, two of the biggest municipalities in Mexico.
Ebrard has to stay reasonably close to AMLO, for reasons of governance, if nothing else.
Good point. I saw this quote from Ebrard's transportation chief in the new Newsweek interview with AMLO, which kind of drives home the same idea: "If they get rid of AMLO, we're all leaving and we'll leave them with the shell."
So what's Ebrard to do?
Post a Comment