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López Obrador affirms that Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas, founder of the left in Mexico, is now his political adversary

2023-01-31T20:41:17.989Z


The president of Mexico breaks with the son of Lázaro Cárdenas and founder of the PRD after he joined a new opposition front to the Government


The differences between the president of Mexico, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, and Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas Solórzano, son of Lázaro Cárdenas and founder of the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD), seem insurmountable.

Once a mentor and political godfather to López Obrador, Cárdenas, 88, considered by many to be the father of the modern left in Mexico, has joined a new opposition front to the

Obrador

government , the so-called Colectivo por México or “Mexicolectivo”.

This Tuesday morning, López Obrador has called Cárdenas a conservative and has criticized him for collaborating in that group with Francisco Labastida, a former PRI member who was a presidential candidate of the old regime in 2000, or with José Narro, another PRI member, former rector of the UNAM, who worked for the Government of Enrique Peña Nieto (2012-2018).

"Every day that passes there are more definitions, and it is much better to know who the adversaries really are than to face simulators," López Obrador said this morning in his daily conference at the National Palace.

"Do you consider Cárdenas an adversary, President?"

the reporters asked.

"In politics, yes, if he takes a position of this type," he replied.

I appreciate him very much, I respect him, I consider him a precursor of this movement, but we are living in a moment of definitions and this width is very narrow, there is nowhere to go, it is to be with the people or with the oligarchy.

There's no more.

There is no right middle.

—What do you think of Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas going in this group with Francisco Labastida?

—It is normal, they have to exercise their right to demonstrate and they do not agree with our transformation project, they are closer to the conservative bloc, it is a kind of moderate wing of the conservative bloc.

The president's criticism has been added this afternoon by the head of the Government of Mexico City, Claudia Sheinbaum, aspiring to succeed López Obrador in the National Palace.

“There are moments of political definition and in that definition one decides where he wants to be, and, with all due respect to the engineer [Cárdenas], he makes a decision as to where he wants to be.

We also have a very clear definition, and also it is not less than the vast majority of the people of Mexico are with the project headed by the president, "said the capital official in an interview with the press.

The national leader of the PRD, Jesús Zambrano — with whom López Obrador has also broken lances — has come out in defense of Cárdenas, whom he said is the most important political leader in Mexico's democratic transition.

There is no record that López Obrador has referred to Cárdenas in the past as a political adversary with such clarity.

At least not publicly.

The history of the wear and tear of the relationship between the two characters is already long.

In 2000, Cárdenas, championed by the PRD, faced Labastida in the presidential elections, with whom he now, two decades later, promotes “Mexicolectivo”.

It was Cárdenas's third presidential candidacy, after the one in 1988 —the one when the

system

fell— and the one in 1994. In 2000, the founder of the PRD sponsored López Obrador to be a candidate for head of government of Mexico City (then Federal District).

The left was living its best moment in the capital thanks, in large part, to the trajectory in the opposition struggle of Cárdenas himself.

In 2005, Cárdenas tried to run again for the Presidency of the Republic, but in the end he stepped aside to leave the way clear for who was already becoming his replacement as a historical representative of the Mexican left.

López Obrador was a first-time presidential candidate, but received a silent endorsement from Cárdenas.

It was the beginning of the distancing.

In the struggles of the opposition to the PAN and PRI governments, the two leftist leaders tended to follow different paths: Cárdenas opted for academic criticism, López Obrador for popular mobilization.

Then the absence of Cárdenas in the acts headed by López Obrador became more and more noticeable: the announcements of a new presidential candidacy, the acts of resistance against electoral fraud, the criticism of the privatizing reforms of the PAN or the PRI.

Although both resigned from the PRD alleging the corruption of the party, and in that they did agree, over time it became clear that both leaders had different ideas of what a left-wing national project should be.

Cárdenas—one of whose sons, Lázaro Cárdenas Batel, currently collaborates with López Obrador—published writings advocating progressive tax reforms that would allow the government to collect more from the rich and redistribute it equitably to the poor.

Reform, by the way, absent in the Administration of López Obrador,

A year before the 2018 elections, Cárdenas maintained contacts with politicians from the PAN and the PRD, at a time when a growing sector of the opposition began to talk about “coalition governments” beyond purely electoral alliances.

In one of the meetings, of which a photo was published, Ricardo Anaya participated, who would ultimately become the presidential candidate of the PAN-PRD “Front” and who would confront López Obrador more forcefully during the campaigns.

Cárdenas did not attend any rally of the Morena candidate at that time.

But López Obrador recognized that without the struggles of Cárdenas and other leftist leaders, his electoral victory in 2018 would not have been possible.

During the government transition period, a few days after the elections, the two former allies met again.

There they recognized each other, with respect, and called each other friends.

Cárdenas said that López Obrador could count on his accompaniment, and López Obrador said that it was an honor for him.

But since then the relationship has only come down again.

Son of the president who nationalized the oil industry in the last century, Cárdenas Solórzano has criticized the government's enormous public spending on the Dos Bocas refinery.

He has also questioned the president's alliance with Manuel Bartlett, an old PRI collaborator who is credited with the

fall of the system,

a dark political-electoral operation for which Cárdenas lost the 1988 elections against Carlos Salinas de Gortari.

For him, López Obrador is not a

cardenista

, since he has said that his father's true inheritance is the fight against inequality and that the

Obrador

government has many debts towards the dispossessed, a harsh criticism for who has insisted on playing the former president Lázaro Cárdenas almost a saint.

Now, for López Obrador, Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas is nothing more than a forerunner on the left, a conservative, an adversary like so many.

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Source: elparis

All news articles on 2023-01-31

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