This Saturday is the day that Mexicans gather in the Zócalo of the Mexican capital to pay tribute to General Cárdenas' oil expropriation last century, which gave the country days of political glory and economic boom.
Or what is the same, this Saturday is the day that Morena gathers his followers in the Zócalo of the Mexican capital to pay homage to the president and leader of all of them, Andrés Manuel López Obrador.
Turned into a kind of
coup de force
, the street marches of the ruling party and the opposition have their fourth round today, to see who twists whose arm in this political race.
López Obrador did it with his adversaries because, as he said, those who marched last November dressed in pink and white were not enough to fill the Zócalo.
So that there were no doubts about their desire, they gathered again on February 26 in the country's main square.
And they filled it.
Between both protests, called under the slogan of the INE no se toca, the morenistas responded by tens of thousands in support of the president two weeks after their opponents.
And this Saturday they have a second meeting.
This weekend's concentration raises two great figures, that of Cárdenas and that of Benito Juárez, who are, along with Madero, the presidents that the current one invokes day after day as the inspirers of his politics.
To them he ascribes the great advances of Mexico in the course of the centuries, great figures that arouse Mexican patriotism.
Buses will arrive from all corners to fill the streets and end at the Zócalo, where the president will receive them with a speech.
And it is difficult for something to cloud this celebration in a long weekend, with the Monday holiday.
Not even the surprise announcement that Lázaro Cárdenas Batel resigns as the head of the president's advisers.
The news, which López Obrador has confirmed, could not have come on a worse day.
Cárdenas Batel is the grandson of the admired general, but leaves upset because the Mexican president placed his father, Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas, on the side of the conservatives.
The totem of the Mexican left and once a close collaborator of López Obrador, was accused in the National Palace of joining the right for even intellectually participating in an opposition platform related to Movimiento Ciudadano, Mexicolectivo.
Cárdenas son immediately disassociated himself from that organization and Cárdenas grandson submitted his resignation, two days later, from the president's closest circle, according to sources consulted by this newspaper.
No more blood, no more river.
The demonstrations have been cordial between the leaders, but political ties have been damaged.
MORE INFORMATION
March of López Obrador "for energy sovereignty": when is it, closed streets and alternative roads
In this new demonstration, today oil, perhaps the son of the general will not be seen, who by tradition goes every March 18 to the Monument to the Revolution, where the general is buried.
In a recent interview with EL PAÍS, the founder of the PRD said neither yes nor no.
We will have to wait to find out if he attends.
But in said interview, although he pointed out that he was not his adversary, he made it clear that he does not see López Obrador as a Cardenista, Maderista or Juarista.
Lithium has given the president a good opportunity to follow his oil idol.
In Sonora, last week, where a deposit of the most precious mineral in these technological times was discovered, he recalled the nationalization of oil as the way forward.
But it was not necessary to call the event this Saturday, there are already consolidated patriotic reasons for it and, of course, the politics of the moment are unquestionable.
The race for the 2024 presidency began early in this six-year term. Before traditionally, the candidates to succeed the president in their party ran, and since then, an unarmed opposition has tried to follow suit by suggesting possible leaders to lead the opposing cartel.
They do not find accommodation for now in the political field, but the street was favorable for them: the November demonstration,
all grouped under the defense of the INE, which López Obrador has reformed with the majority support of Congress, gave them one of the most fruitful moments they have had in the entire six-year term.
A crowd gathered against the president, who has become, for now, the only item on the opposition electoral platform.
That success breathed encouragement in a host that intends to walk in alliance, but that have not just found each other and that are doing poorly in the polls.
The street has become the political battlefield.
The morenistas responded quickly and well with their next march (even more numerous), where the president went out with his followers to defend his own government and got dangerously stuck in a tumult of followers who carried him through the waves to the Zócalo.
This time he will not take those risks, he will wait for the supporters at the foot of the National Palace, from where he will address them a few words, in which he will mention Cárdenas again, also Juárez, who is celebrated on Monday, and very probably to Madero.
The crowd bath will convert the president for a few hours into that fourth president that he longs to be, a historic leader for a Fourth Transformation.
The final of the match is not yet called.
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