(El Pais).- It hasn’t even taken 10 years for the Morena party — or the National Regeneration Movement — to become the dominant political force in Mexico. It has managed to wipe the historic Revolutionary Institutional Party (PRI) from the electoral map, with few regions able to resist the wave.
A decade ago, Morena didn’t even exist. And seven years ago, it didn’t hold a single one of the country’s 32 governorships, with only a minimal presence in Congress. Today, the party controls the presidency, along with several states. And, for better or for worse, the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate are dominated by Morena members.
Humberto Beck — a professor at the Center for International Studies of El Colegio de México — highlights Morena’s ability to break barriers. “If you look at the map of the governorships, it’s clear that Morena broke the geographical-political structure that prevailed in the country during the transition years,” he explains, referring to the two six-year terms of the PAN (the National Action Party) at the helm of the government, first with Vicente Fox and then with Felipe Calderón, from 2000 to 2012.
The rise of Morena has been meteoric these past few years, especially considering its beginnings. López Obrador’s failure in the 2012 presidential elections left him in a bad position within the PRD. The man from Tabasco had lost the elections for the second time, this time by a wide margin, unlike in 2006, when only a handful of votes kept him out of office. Back in 2006, López Obrador made allegations of electoral fraud and occupied downtown Mexico City for months — he even appointed his own cabinet of resistance.
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