Mario Delgado shows his proof of registration as a candidate for the presidency of Morena.Pedro Anza / Cuartoscuro
The exhausting internal elections of Morena have finally reached a conclusion and Mario Delgado will be the new president.
The current coordinator of the parliamentary group in Congress, 48 years old, has been elected with 58.6% of the support and will be in charge of piloting the ship of the party in power towards the intermediate elections of 2021, where Morena will plays to strengthen its territorial power.
Delgado's triumph also means the victory of the most liberal and pragmatic sector within the party.
While the defeat of Porfirio Muñoz Ledo (41.1%) relegates the most orthodox wing, the guardians of the essence of the political project started just nine years ago in the image and likeness of Andrés Manuel López Obrador.
The new leadership will have as its first challenge to heal the wounds opened by a long and turbulent election process.
Since the summer of last year, when the preparatory assemblies for the primaries began, the war unleashed between the different factions has made it impossible to reach an agreement even on the format to elect their new leader.
After the entry into the scene of the Electoral Court to bring order to the internal chaos, a kind of second round of the controversial open polling system has been necessary, which has been monitored and supervised by the National Electoral Institute (INE).
The first date, three weeks ago, ended with a technical tie that provoked a furious reaction from Muñoz Ledo, the favorite during that first round of polls, denouncing a robbery and a "conspiracy against democracy."
Unlike the veteran Muñoz Ledo (87 years), with more than five decades on the road and experience in the leadership of both the PRI and the PRD.
Delgado has developed his entire political career in the shadow of López Obrador.
He went through different portfolios -Public Security, Finance, Social Development- during the mandate of the now president as head of Government in Mexico City, and then enrolled in Morena since its foundation in 2011.
Delgado will relieve Alfonso Ramírez Cuéllar, interim president during these months of uncertainty, and on whom the new leader of the party has launched accusations of interventionism in favor of Muñoz Ledo's campaign.
At the end of September, it was leaked in the press and audio where Cuéllar and Bertha Luján showed their alignment with the veteran candidate.
Luján, a former party secretary between 2015 and 2019, is considered one of López Obrador's most trusted party cadres, which, formally at least, has kept a prudent distance throughout the tense evolution of events.
Delgado will now have the task of reconciling a divided party with a frontally opposed faction and with power in the internal structures.
In fact, the new secretary general, Citlali Hernández, elected in the first round of voting, also belongs to the toughest wing.
One of the scenes of greatest tension was experienced a few days after the first resolution of the INE.
Muñoz Ledo summoned his followers to the party headquarters in the capital to proclaim himself the winner.
However, the symbolic act did not take place because a group of feminist militants from the party blocked the entrance to the premises, accusing the veteran candidate of sexual harassment.
Amid shouts and insults, Muñoz Ledo's morenistas accused them of being Delgado's morenistas, in the service of a spurious action to block the proclamation.
The long campaign has been marked by a flood of attacks between the two sides.
Before the final escalation, Muñoz Ledo even threatened to expel Ebrard from the party, accusing him of an inordinate ambition to climb to the presidential seat.
He also slipped accusations of corruption against Delgado, hinting at knowing an alleged cause of embezzlement of funds on the leader of his party's bench.
From the other side, they counterattacked, accusing the veteran ex-deputy of inflating his social networks with an artificial campaign at the stroke of a checkbook.
Throughout the turbulent internal election process in Morena, another dispute within the party has run in parallel.
With the distant succession to the presidential candidacy, 2024, on the horizon, the blocks that have disputed the leadership of the party also represent different options for the race for the presidential chair.
Muñoz Ledo's candidacy was supported by the current head of government of the capital, Claudia Sheinbaum, while the winner, Delgado, brought together the aspirations of the current chancellor, Marcelo Ebrard.
