These days, surveys are being carried out in Mexico to define the candidate, both from the official alliance made up of the Morena, PT and Verde parties, as well as from the Broad Front for Mexico (PRI, PAN, PRD).
In the first week of September the chosen ones in each coalition will be known. On the opposition side, things are clearer: two women compete. One is Xochitl Gálvez, who despite being a Senator for the PAN, maintains an interpellation between classes: she speaks both to the upper classes –she is a businesswoman– and to the middle classes –tired in a good part of the country of the governments of Morena–, like the popular ones (she was born in a peasant community and her father was indigenous). In front of him will be Beatriz Paredes, an old-fashioned cadre of the most orthodox PRI who has been a deputy, senator, governor, ambassador and president of the PRI, as well as a current Senator, like Xochitl.
Six pro-government candidates
On the pro-government side, things get a little more complicated: there are six candidates, four from Morena (Marcelo Ebrard, former Foreign Minister; Claudia Sheinbaum, former Head of Government of Mexico City; Ricardo Monreal, former Coordinator of the Political Coordination Board of the Senate; and Adán Augusto López, former Secretary of Government).
For its part, the Labor Party has the former deputy Gerardo Fernández Noroña as its bet, and the Green Party proposes the media husband of the actress Anahi, the former Governor of Chiapas and Senator Manuel Velasco. In reality, Monreal, López, Noroña and Velasco maintain voting intention percentages of less than 10 percent: the real candidates for Morena are reduced to Marcelo Ebrard and Claudia Sheinbaum.
The two-month campaign in which the candidates were forced by their parties to resign their posts in order not to have public resources for their campaign, has been marred by complaints of not respecting the agreements signed with López Obrador himself.who since he came to the government promoted that electoral crimes -which the PRI constantly committed in the past- be classified as serious.
It has been denounced the transport of people to the different rallies, the use of large, very expensive posters throughout the country that were not controlled, and the use of public officials in charge of social programs in favor of Claudia Sheinbaum, and to a lesser extent by Adam Augusto Lopez. Probably the complaint before the INE and the Electoral Tribunal of the alleged crimes committed during the campaign, will lead to judicialization of the process for months.
The internal is defined with surveys
The tension is so great that the Morena party, commissioned through its Commission of Inquiry to carry out the poll for its internal party, has had to hire four polling houses proposed by the candidates to carry out mirror studies. ToAll the polls will be with a simulated ballot box and in theory in random districts, so that they cannot be manipulated, something that has also been denounced in the past.
From here, and while the different surveys are developed, several scenarios open up. On the side of the opposition alliance, and although Beatriz Paredes puts up a fight, everything seems to indicate that the presidential candidate will be Xochitl Gálvez, especially after the third party in contention, Santiago Creel, representative of the traditional PAN and President of the board of directors of the Chamber of Deputies, will lower its candidacy in favor of Xochitl.
In the ruling party, Claudia Sheinbaum takes advantage of Marcelo Ebrard, favored by the two years of early campaign in different states while she was Head of Government of Mexico City, in alliance from the Palace with Televisawhich continues to have the communicative hegemony in the Mexican common sense.
However, since Chancellor Ebrard resigned from his position and began his tours of the country, the difference has been narrowing. An important element that Morena has to decide is what happens if the difference between the first two turns out to be small, within the margin of error of the pollsters. Logic says that a kind of second round should be held between the two most voted candidates.
The stages
Three possible scenarios open up in Morena’s inmate. One would be for Marcelo Ebrard to win the poll and then Claudia Sheinbaum to go as coordinator of senators (in Mexico a Senator generally has more power than a Secretary or Minister of State). Then a united Morena could defeat the opposition led by Xochitl Gálvez.
The second option would be if Claudia Sheinbaum came out first in the polls and Ebrard agreed to go as the first Senator. The third option would be for Sheinbaum to be first in the polls, but with discrepancies between the different pollsters that will intersect, and for Ebrard to break with his party and appear outside of Morena. This last scenario, although it is not desired by anyone in Morena, starting with the President, is feasible.
Then a scenario with three candidates would open. One would be Xochitl Gálvez bringing together the vote of the right and in general of the anti-Obrador middle classes. The other would be Claudia Sheinbaum with the official vote, and then Marcelo Ebrard leading a project that rejects the past, but asks to reform and improve the so-called fourth transformation, tearing apart a part of the structure of the PT and Verde, in addition to Morena. This will create a tremendously volatile scenario in which anything can happen. It is necessary to remember that almost half of the total number of Morena deputies, who support Ebrard, have just signed a statement stressing that «unity is built with respect, it is built when there is even ground, without lying, legitimately listening to the people.»
