Politics: BOF Efforts Intensify, But Pitfalls Remain
As the incumbent PRI considers new ground rules for its presidential selection process, and that of Morena was always a foregone conclusion, PAN and PRD leaders have been stepping up efforts to establish what they have billed as a Broad Opposition Front (BOF) that could involve other political parties and, perhaps more importantly, a broad swath of civil society representatives who could help such a coalition attract the growing share of the electorate disillusioned with parties in general.
Last week an event in Chihuahua sponsored by prominent PAN members, and another in Mexico City organized by a PRD power group, were held to promote the idea. State governors and other major political figures were on hand, generally offering to back such an alliance, but BOF partisans have yet to resolve one of the most immediate issues that will determine whether it becomes a reality: settling on a common presidential candidate. More troublingly, scant progress has been made to sketch out the contours of a joint campaign platform that could constitute an appealing, innovative and viable governing program.
The presence of all four PRD sitting governors at the events, as well as the party’s top leaders, underscored the seriousness with which the PRD political apparatus is taking the possibility of a front with the PAN. The party’s enthusiasm is based less on any supposed ideological affinities than pragmatic and clientelist calculations of what is needed for the organization to survive politically in a period in which it has been outflanked on the left by Morena.
In contrast, the PAN is divided over its own frozen presidential nomination process, whose main protagonists are split over whether the party can win in 2018 without making major candidate and campaign concessions to lesser allies. With the party’s strongest polling potential nominee, Margarita Zavala, viewing the BOF efforts as little more than a maneuver to frustrate her bid to win the PAN nomination, there is a threat that a focus on building such a grand alliance could ultimately dash the PAN’s prospects in 2018 by leaving a significant part of its own electoral base divided and demoralized.
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