While the others do not stop uploading photos to their social networks or directly raise their elbows within the party demanding attention, Adán Augusto López has decided that his best strategy is to concentrate on doing his job.
The Secretary of the Interior, one of Morena's candidates in the very advanced presidential race of 2024, has multiplied his activity during a few important days for the Government's agenda.
Without looking for the loudspeaker of the spotlights, López has entered fully into the parliamentary operation to shield the police tasks of the Army, asserting his role as a discreet negotiator and one of the president's maximum confidence.
This week his presence in parliament has been more frequent than usual.
In a single day, for example, he went through the Congress and the Senate.
It was on the eve of the first vote to prolong the presence of the military in the streets, a thorny issue that requires touching the Constitution again.
That is to say, a reinforced majority that exceeds the threshold of Morena and his partners.
The votes of the PRI are the key, but the historic formation is at the center of a hurricane, debating in a survival strategy that swings between supporting the Government or the rest of the opposition, with whom it has an alliance that is about to burst.
A thorny issue, after all, that requires the intervention of a specialist.
The visit that day of the Secretary of the Interior was captured by the cameras.
"I just came to visit my son, who is doing his social service," was his elusive response.
The next day, the initiative successfully passed the first test in the lower house.
His visit to the Senate had more publicity, the toughest place where the future of the reform will be decided.
He met with Ricardo Monreal, the head of Morena's caucus, and they announced that they are already preparing rounds of negotiations to unblock the foreseeable resistance of the PRI group in the upper house, which rejects the measure.
Monreal is another of the most influential Morenoite operators, he was in fact the one who reached a consensus with the opposition for the Army's first armor in 2020. But something has changed in the last year.
With the arrival of López, the Ministry of the Interior has regained power.
“It is not noticeable, but it is felt”
Monreal, in addition to the group leader in the Senate, is another of the candidates in the presidential race along with the head of the capital, Claudia Sheinbaum, and the chancellor, Marcelo Ebrard.
The last two have accelerated their image campaign on social networks in search of the young vote, while Monreal has chosen to make noise asking for more space and even slipping a possible exit from the party.
In another important vote, the transfer of the National Guard under military command, he decided two weeks ago to abstain with more legal than political reasoning.
The National Palace did not like this new push and pull of Monreal.
Within the party, they want to ensure strict voting discipline this time, even more so when it comes to their leader in the upper house.
That is the task entrusted to the Secretary of the Interior by direct order of López Obrador.
"Since his controversial abstention on the issue of the National Guard, he is in permanent communication with Monreal," sources from Morena acknowledge.
Adán Augusto López Hernández, at the exit of the National Palace.
Galo Cañas (Cuartoscuro)
"A countryman, friend and endearing companion."
This is how the president defined the new Secretary of the Interior, former governor of Tabasco and faithful squire of López Obrador for more than two decades, during his presentation in office.
An appointment that was read at the time as a strengthening of the Government portfolio or, rather, as the recovery of its essence summarized in an old motto of Mexican politics: "Government is not noticeable, but it is felt."
The previous mandate, in charge of Olga Sánchez Cordero, was largely overshadowed by the interventionism of other dependencies: the legal office of the presidency, Monreal or the president himself.
However, López has completely taken the reins of domestic politics.
Some of his successes have been keeping the ranks of the governors tight, intensifying the dialogue with the opposition, the unions or the judiciary, as evidenced by the recent decision of the Supreme Court to postpone a possible elimination of preventive detention.
The secretary and the candidate
Precisely because of the nature of the position, the president's political negotiator, it is not usual for the head of the Interior to be part of the internal fight for the succession.
From his team they emphasize that López is especially aware of that delicate balance between his role as an interlocutor with everyone on supposedly equal terms and his role as a candidate.
“He takes great care of himself,” they point out from his environment, and they give as an example the complaint he filed in June with the electoral body to distance himself from some electoral advertisements in his favor.
His critics, however, accuse him precisely of using his post catwalk to campaign.
They usually cite his thorough involvement in the controversial consultation for the renewal of the mandate.
Another task, again, entrusted directly from the presidency.
Morena has been involved in the succession debate for more than a year.
The two likely contenders at this point in the race are clearly Sheinbaum and Ebrard, as Enkoll's recent poll for this paper showed.
The mayor leads the intention to vote with 48%, compared to 36% for the chancellor.
Far away are Monreal, with 10%, and López, with 6%.
None of the candidates can even come close to the political charisma and popular pull of López Obrador, but all are trying to score points.
In the case of López, his efforts to present a friendlier and closer face have sometimes not finished working as he would have liked.
A month ago, the Secretary of the Interior decided to leave his office to attend in person to a group of mothers and relatives of the disappeared who were protesting in the street.
“Do you trust me?” López asked one of the mothers.
She replied that no, that she doesn't trust anyone.
And, before the cameras of the phones that made the scene go viral, the secretary replied with disdain: "Well, I don't trust you either."
Despite the setbacks and the polls, the president's most trusted man continues to do his job discreetly, professionally and in silence.
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