Ebrard, AMLO, and the Alliances

Bajo Reserva explains what the PAN-PRD alliances mean for the latter party's heavyweights:

Marcelo Ebrard has now bought into the alliances. Beyond that, he said yesterday that an election coalition like that of 2010 (PRD-PAN and whoever joins up) will confront the PRI candidate for governor in the state of Mexico next year. This leads to various conclusions. The first is that there exists a clear intention to impact the preferences of the second most power competitor for the presidential candidates: Enrique Peña Nieto, because it's not secret that the process in Mexico, before the federal election in 2012 will serve to measure the force of the present governor and the PRI as well. The second is that he puts distance between himself and Andrés Manuel López Obrador and he aligns himself more with the PRD of Jesús Ortega: let's remember that AMLO, his principal competitor (because he competes in internal elections and then, depending on the result, in the federal electoral process), is opposed to the alliances. The third is perhaps the most important--because the first two are logical conclusions: Ebrard has decided to place his bet on the result of this summer in 2010. By buying into the alliances, he is gambling part of his political capital. Very interesting.