The PAN approves allying with the PRI and PRD to try to seize Congress from Morena in 2021

The session in the Chamber of Deputies on October 7, 2020 CHAMBER OF DEPUTIES / EFE

Political alliances in Mexico enter unexplored terrain.

The national advisers of the National Action Party (PAN) have approved this Saturday the possibility of large coalitions for the mid-term of 2021, when the Chamber of Deputies will be renewed and 15 governorships will be elected.

The right-wing party has given the green light to go united on the ballot with the Institutional Revolutionary (PRI) and that of the Democratic Revolution (PRD).

The agreement of this great alliance aims to seize control of the lower house from the Andrés Manuel López Obrador movement, a goal that the opposition has set as vital for the presidential elections of 2024. The vision of the majority, on the other hand , considers the opposition front a reissue of the Pact for Mexico, forged in 2013 and whose scope and credibility were eroding as the Government of Enrique Peña Nieto advanced.

The councilors have supported the proposal of Marko Cortés, the party president, to nominate common candidates in 158 of the 300 electoral districts of the country.

The PAN will lead the coalition in 61 districts, the PRI in 53 and the PRD in 44. As of today, the PAN is the main opponent in Congress.

It has 77 deputies, 15% of the representation in the Chamber of Deputies.

They are followed by the PRI with 48 legislators and the PRD, with 12. Unidos, the former major parties in Mexico, are still far from the overwhelming majority of Morena (252 deputies) and his allies, the PT (48);

PES (24) and Green (11).

The yes of the PAN was one of the main obstacles to the formation of the opposition front.

But the arrangement, which has yet to be endorsed by the PRI and PRD councils, who had already shown signs of being in favor, has also been woven for local elections.

The organizations have prior agreements for Baja California Sur (governed by the PAN), San Luis Potosí (of the PRI), Sonora (PRI), Colima (PRI) and Tlaxcala (PRD).

The agreement voted this afternoon only prohibits alliances with a single political organization: Morena.

The formation of this alliance generated controversy within the PAN, a party that for decades had the PRI as its main enemy and whom it repeatedly accused of forging fraud and being an obstacle to the democratization of the country.

This week some old-fashioned PAN members confessed that their stomachs turned at the mere thought of accompanying the one who served as a single party for more than eight decades.

Today, however, they are fellow travelers on a pragmatic route traced by the omnipresence of López Obrador.

25 speakers within the National Council spoke against Cortés's proposal.

Another 25 did it in favor.

The latter were achieving important and visible support in recent days.

17 ex-governors of the party issued a letter justifying the desperate measures.

"Overcoming a populist government by democratic means will only be possible with a united, solid and generous work of the authentically democratic forces that today seek to reach a majority in Congress in 2021," wrote the politicians, grouped in United for Mexico.

The opposition alliance has also been sought by some civil society organizations.

Among them is Sí por México, which claims to have the support of 50,000 people.

On November 30, this movement, supported by some employers such as Coparmex and other groups identified with the business right, asked the parties to unite at the front.

"We are clear that explaining to the militancy why marching hand in hand with those who were once their adversaries is a major effort ... Today we require the broadest unity to stop the collapse of the country," they wrote in a letter addressed to the presidencies. of the parties.

The claim of some sectors of the opposition begins to take shape.

And the narrative of President López Obrador is also confirmed, who has been criticizing the parties that are about to join forces without ideological affinities and with a single purpose: to subtract power for two years.