Politics: New Party Leaders in a Very Different Context
The two major political parties that suffered the greatest setbacks in last June’s elections (PRI and PRD) elected new national leaders this past week as they try to reposition themselves. Both parties face a new balance of power following the elections this past June, from which the National Action Party (PAN) emerged strengthened, support for the PRI continued to deteriorate, and the PRD’s situation grew more dire.
President Enrique Peña Nieto handpicked as PRI chairman Enrique Ochoa, a loyal associate with no record of party participation or elected office, and he did it in the old "dedazo" style of presidential impositions, prompting brief expressions of discontent within the party that predictably and quickly gave way to acquiescence.
Ochoa is styled as the newest incarnation of what was supposed to be an entirely “new PRI”, whose popularity has plummeted under the weight of a string of corruption scandals at both the state and federal levels. Although his record as a public servant is untainted by such impropriety, this effort at branding an "absolutely new PRI" will require more than efforts to disassociate the party from some of its most prominent and graft-stained governors, beginning with serious efforts to root out malfeasance among PRI office holders.
The PRD leadership contest came in the wake of the party’s effort to reinvent itself following its political and electoral debacles of 2014-2015 by choosing someone from outside its ranks to serve as chairman. Agustín Basave resigned that post after concluding that it was impossible to preside over an organization so dominated by infighting between rival currents, whose jostling ultimately undermined efforts to settle on a consensus candidate. However, the formerly dominant New Left current, which had favored leaving interim chairwoman Beatriz Mojica in the post, ultimately decided to back Mexico City Minister of Education Alejandra Barrales, who was elected to serve out the chairmanship through October 2017 with the support of the necessary two thirds of the national leadership. But the party’s unity will continue to be challenged as it debates its policy of alliances for the 2017 and 2018 elections, and as the success of Morena continues to lure members and voters away from the PRD.
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