Politics: The challenges facing the new PAN leadership
On Sunday, November 11, the PAN, Mexico’s main opposition party, renewed its leadership, with its newly elected president, Jorge Romero, promising a thoroughgoing reform. However, the obstacles are formidable, beginning with Romero’s very diminished credibility. His reputation has been tarnished by allegations from President Claudia Sheinbaum, backed by quotes from Felipe Calderon’s book “Difficult Decisions”, that he was centrally involved in what has become known as the “real estate cartel” in a Mexico City borough run by the PAN.
The PAN’s crisis is multifold. Its diminished numerical strength is insufficient to block Morena’s commanding 2/3 qualified majority in Congress, and the party has seen its fortunes at the ballot box plummet, from obtaining 43% of the vote in 2000 to 16% this past June. Polls indicate that only 11% of citizens identify with the PAN.
Part of the problem is a personalized leadership based on semi-permanent cliques vying for control and candidacies. This, coupled with corruption scandals in states where the party is in the governor’s seat, has contributed to a crisis of representativity, with an increased distance between the PAN and society, which feels its elected officials do not deliver what the population needs and demands. An additional factor is that the PAN’s flirtation with ultra-right positions and political formations abroad is at odds with trends in Mexican society, particularly among young people.
Morena has sought to fill the void left by the PAN in the latter’s traditional social base, the middle class. This trend anticipates crucial battles ahead in the 2027 mid-term and 2030 presidential elections.
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