National Regeneration Movement

The National Regeneration Movement (Spanish: Movimiento Regeneración Nacional), also known by its acronym MORENA (Spanish for "bronze-skinned", Olive skinned or "tanned",[16][17] alluding to Mexico's national patroness the "tan-skinned Virgin (Mary)"[18] Our Lady of Guadalupe),[19][20] is a Cardenist[4] and social-democratic[6][7] political party in Mexico.[21] Established as a non-profit organization in 2011 and formally registered as a political party in 2014, it was led by three-time presidential candidate and current President of Mexico, Andrés Manuel López Obrador[22][23][24] until 12 December 2017, when he registered himself as a candidate for the party's nomination, and was succeeded by Yeidckol Polevnsky Gurwitz.[25][26]

National Regeneration Movement

Movimiento Regeneración Nacional
AbbreviationMORENA
President and
Secretary General		Alfonso Ramirez Cuellar
FounderAndrés Manuel López Obrador
Founded2 October 2011
(as a non-profit organization)[1]
10 July 2014
(as a political party)[2]
Split fromParty of the Democratic Revolution
HeadquartersSanta Anita #50, Col. Viaducto Piedad
C.P. 08200 Iztacalco, Mexico City
Membership (2017)319,449[3]
IdeologyCardenism[4]
Reformism[5]
Social democracy[6][7]
Left-wing populism[8]
Left-wing nationalism[9]
Non-interventionism[10]
Panhispanism[11]
Political positionCentre-left[12] to left-wing[13]
National affiliationJuntos Haremos Historia
Regional affiliationForo de São Paulo[14]
Colours     Maroon
SloganLa esperanza de México[15]
(The hope of Mexico)
Seats in the
Chamber of Deputies
286 / 500
Seats in the
Senate of the Republic
65 / 128
State governors
4 / 32
Seats in
State legislatures
378 / 1,123
Mayors
335 / 2,011
Website
morena.si

For the 2018 general elections, it formed the coalition Juntos Haremos Historia (Together we'll make history) along with the left-wing Labor Party and right-wing Social Encounter Party. It won the presidency with 53% of the popular vote, and won a majority in both the Senate and Chamber of Deputies.

History

Early years (2011–2016)

MORENA was officially founded by Andrés Manuel López Obrador as a non-profit, structured as a democratic socio-political movement to protest against political corruption, electoral fraud and the policies of what he labeled the "mafia of power", drawing support from the Yo Soy 132 student movement[27][28][29][30] it became a cross-party organization supporting his candidacy for the Presidency in the 2012 general election on 2 October 2011.[31] Following López Obrador's loss in the 2012 election, he left his former party, the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD), and MORENA transformed from an unofficial 'movement' into a political party (with López Obrador as its leader).[32] A couple of days after his departure from the PRD, federal deputy Ricardo Monreal stated it was a "divorce for convenience," and that López Obrador did the most responsible thing in order to avoid the polarization of the country.[33] According to polls and surveys, most of the Mexican public had negative view on the establishment of MORENA as a political party.[34] On 7 January 2014, Martí Batres, president of MORENA, presented the documentation to the INE to be acknowledged political party.[35] In 2014, López Obrador revealed why he left the PRD, stating, "I left the PRD because the leaders of that party betrayed the people, they went with Peña Nieto and approved the Pact for Mexico, which is nothing more than a 'Pact against Mexico.' I can not be in a party where tax increases were approved and it was approved that they will increase the price of gasoline every month. Gasoline in Mexico costs more than in the United States, the salary in Mexico is the lowest in the entire North American continent, and instead of asking for wage increases, the PRD rose to the podium to ask for the increase in the price of gasoline, it's an embarrassment."[36] After Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas criticized him for forming his own political party, on 7 July 2014, López Obrador posted on social media that, "PRD leaders and most of its legislators voted for the fiscal reforms [raising taxes and gas prices] and with their collaboration they paved the way for privatization of the oil industry."[37] On 10 July 2014, the INE approved MORENA to be an official political party to receive federal funds and to participate in the 2015 legislative elections.[38]

2015 Mexican legislative elections

The 2015 legislative elections was the first election where MORENA participated as an official political party. It managed to win 35 seats in the Chamber of Deputies: 14 district seats plus 21 proportional seats.

Juntos Haremos Historia (2017–present)
See also: 2018 Mexican general election and Opinion polling for the 2018 Mexican general election

The 2018 general election was the first presidential election in which MORENA participated. MORENA fought the election in coalition with socialist Labor Party (PT) and the right-wing Christian-conservative Social Encounter Party (PES) under the name Juntos Haremos Historia.

Background

On 24 June 2017, the PT agreed to fight the 2018 election in an electoral alliance with MORENA; however the coalition was not officially registered with the National Electoral Institute (INE), the country's electoral authority. For MORENA, the alliance was facilitated by the withdrawal of the PT's candidate Óscar González Yáñez, who resigned his candidacy and called for votes in favor of Delfina Gómez Álvarez, standard-bearer in the state elections of the State of Mexico in 2017.[39][40][41]

In October 2017, at PT's National Congress, as party president Alberto Anaya was reelected to another 6-year term, PT formalized its coalition with MORENA.[42]

At first, there was speculation about the possibility of a front grouping all the left-wing parties: MORENA, the PRD, PT and the MC. However, López Obrador rejected any kind of agreement due to political differences, especially after the elections in the State of Mexico, when the candidates of the PRD and MC continued with their campaigns refusing to support the MORENA candidate.[43] At the end of November 2017, the leaders of MORENA and the PES announced that they were in talks to form a possible alliance: Hugo Eric Flores Cervantes, president of the PES, said "We don't negotiate with the PRI, we have two options, go alone or with MORENA."[44]

Confirmation

Parties of the coalition Juntos Haremos Historia

On 13 December 2017, PES joined the coalition between MORENA and the PT, and it was formalized under the name Juntos Haremos Historia (English: Together We Will Make History).[45] Following the signing of the agreement, López Obrador was appointed as a pre-candidate for the three political groups.[46] It was a partial coalition that supported López Obrador as the presidential candidate and divided the legislative elections between the three: MORENA chose candidates in 150 federal electoral districts (out of 300) and 32 Senate rates, while the PT and the PES each nominated 75 candidates for the Chamber of Deputies and 16 for the Senate.[47][48]

The alliance received criticism as it was a coalition between two left-wing parties (MORENA and the PT) with a formation related to the evangelical right (PES).[49] In response, MORENA national president Yeidckol Polevnsky said that her party believes in inclusion and team work to "rescue Mexico" and that they will continue to defend human rights;[50] in turn, Hugo Eric Flores Cervantes, national president of the PES, said that "the only possibility of real change in our country is the one headed by Andrés Manuel López Obrador" and that his party had decided to be "on the right side of history."[51]

Results

Former President of MORENA and current President of Mexico,
Andrés Manuel López Obrador

Following the results on 1 July 2018, candidate Andrés Manuel López Obrador won the presidential election with 53% of the popular vote. MORENA won a total of 55 seats in the Senate: 42 constituency seats and 13 proportional representation seats. It won 156 seats in the Chamber of Deputies: 106 based on district and 85 proportional representation seats. It also won 4 governorships: Mexico City, Chiapas, Tabasco, and Veracruz.

Ideology

MORENA describes itself as a democratic left-wing party which supports ethnic, religious, cultural and sexual diversity, respect for human rights and environmental care. It describes itself as an opponent to the neoliberal economic policies that Mexico has adopted since the 1980s. MORENA states that a new economic model is necessary because the neoliberal model failed in Mexico because it became a synonym with corruption, and the party supports "development through private and social business, promoting market competition, but exercising State responsibility in the strategic activities which the Constitution states", and proposes "a model that strengthens the inner market, fair wages; a model that promotes syndical freedom and democracy, where the State doesn't intervene in the inner affairs of the trade organizations".[52][53]

The party sets to stop the privatization of Pemex[54] and the granting of lands to foreign mining companies who "devastate the lands, pay no taxes and harm the environment".

MORENA also declares to be in favor of better treatment of the Indigenous peoples and to carry out the 1996 San Andrés Accords, which were signed by the EZLN and representatives of the Mexican government, but later rejected by then-President Ernesto Zedillo.

The party states to be against the monopolization of the mass media, especially television, by Televisa and TV Azteca, which together own 90% of the Mexican television.[55]

Contrary to other parties of the left, MORENA has not sought to reduce inequality by increasing taxes on the wealthy. Instead, the party has focused on reducing the pay gap between lower-level employees and the extravagant high-level government workers salaries, such as politicians and judges (who make around 10–12 times more as of 2018) through willing austerity measures. They announced support for a plan by López Obrador to cut salaries of the higher-ranking public officials (including the President), lay off up to 70 percent of non-unionized federal workers, and reduce unnecessary spending by cracking down on corruption. As Article 94 of the Mexican Constitution prohibits reducing the salary of judges at any time during their appointment in order to maintain judicial independence, judges on the Supreme Court voluntarily took a 25% pay cut starting in 2019. Several judicial cases regarding the constitutionality of the plan were pending as of the beginning of 2019.[56]

López Obrador's pragmatism

Various outlets have described the National Regeneration Movement as "not in the strict sense a political party, but an alliance of diverse movements and political actors, whose main reference is its founder and presidential candidate, Andrés Manuel López Obrador". Therefore, due to Obrador's pragmatism, some critics have claimed that MORENA is subject to Obrador's own decisions rather than having a more consistent ideology as a party.[57]

Electoral history

Presidential elections
Election year Candidate Votes % Outcome Notes
2018 Andrés Manuel López Obrador 30,113,483 53.20 Y Elected

Legislative elections

Chamber of Deputies

Election year # of
district votes		 % of
district vote		 # of
proportional votes		 % of
proportional vote		 # of
overall seats won		 ± Position
2015 3,327,793 8.8 3,346,303 8.4
35 / 500
 New party Minority
2018 709,840 1.27 20,972,573 37.25
189 / 500
 154 Majority

Senate elections

Election year Constituency PR # of seats ± Position Presidency Alliance
votes % votes %
2018 661,068 1.18 21,261,577 37.50
55 / 128
 New party Majority Andrés Manuel López Obrador Juntos Haremos Historia

List of Party Presidents
Officeholder Term State
Martí Batres 2012–2015 Mexico City
Andrés Manuel López Obrador 2015–2017 Tabasco
Yeidckol Polevnsky Gurwitz 2017–present State of Mexico

See also

References
  1. García, Rosario (2 October 2011). "López Obrador Formaliza a 'MORENA' Como Su Estrucutra Para Las Elecciones". Expansion. Retrieved 31 July 2018.
  2. Zepeda, Aurora (10 July 2014). "Aprueban tres nuevos partidos; a partir de agosto recibirán dinero público". Excelsior. Retrieved 6 July 2018.
  3. Villanueva, Doria (22 August 2017). El Economista (ed.). "Actualizan padrón electoral de partidos políticos".
  4. "Declaración de principios de MORENA" (PDF). Morena.sí (in Spanish).
  5. "AMLO y las nuevas izquierdas". www.nexos.com.mx.
  6. Lopez Guillén, Julio (3 July 2018). "Y México Dijo Sí". La Verdad (in Spanish). Retrieved 3 July 2018.
  7. Gregorich, Luis. "De la corrupción al narcotráfico, el difícil mandato que le espera al mexicano López Obrador". Clarín (in Spanish). Retrieved 3 July 2018.
  8. "'Oye, Trump': candidato presidencial López Obrador ganará por paliza en México" (in Spanish). Bloomberg. 29 June 2018. Retrieved 3 July 2018 – via Gestión.
  9. "Mexico's new president is a nationalist, but he's not anti-American".
  10. Gaytan, Victoria (9 January 2019). "Under AMLO, Mexico's government becomes an enabler". Global Americans. Retrieved 13 December 2019.
  11. Croda, Rafael (11 July 2018). "El esperado "regreso" mexicano para la izquierda latinoamericana" (in Spanish). Retrieved 31 March 2020.
  12. Deslandes, Ann (30 June 2018). "Mexico election: Voters pin hopes on left-wing populist Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador". ABC. Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Retrieved 22 August 2018.
  13. Chamberlain, Samuel (1 July 2018). "Left-wing candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador set to win Mexico presidential election as rivals concede". Fox News.
  14. "Foro de São Paulo Partidos". forodesaopaulo.org.
  15. Ferrer, Heriberta. "AMLO llama a sumarse a Morena en nuevo spot". El Financiero. Retrieved 2 August 2018.
  16. "moreno de piel - English translation – Linguee". Linguee.com.
  17. "moreno - Diccionario Inglés-Español WordReference.com". www.wordreference.com.
  18. Cuevas, Marco Polo Hernández (2003). "La Virgen Morena mexicana: Un símbolo nacional y sus raíces africanas". Afro-Hispanic Review. 22 (2): 54–63. JSTOR 23054734.
  19. Pérez, Santiago; de Córdoba, José. "Mexico Vote Snubs the Political Establishment". The Wall Street Journal. [An] acronym that also alludes to the country's patron saint, the Virgin of Guadalupe, and means tan skinned
  20. Agren, David (22 May 2018). "Political video filmed in Mexican church causes controversy". National Catholic Reporter. Retrieved 2 October 2018. Lopez Obrador's own party name, MORENA, references the national patroness Our Lady of Guadalupe.
  21. "Morena, Partido Humanista y PES toman protesta en INE" (in Spanish). Terra Networks. 13 August 2014. Archived from the original on 6 March 2016. Retrieved 15 August 2014.
  22. "Mexico's Lopez Obrador leaves coalition to form new movement". BBC News. 10 September 2012.
  23. "Mexico's electoral Left May Be Divided Further by a New Political Party". The Wall Street Journal. 24 January 2014.
  24. "Mexico's MORENA Party Obtains Legal Status--What Will Be the Impact?". newpol.org. 19 July 2014.
  25. "Yeidckol Polevnsky asume presidencia de Morena, tras salida de AMLO". AM De Queretaro. Retrieved 22 June 2018.
  26. Rodríguez García, Arturo (12 December 2017). "Yeidckol Polevnsky asume presidencia nacional de Morena". Proceso. Retrieved 22 June 2018.
  27. "Segundo intento de AMLO". 30 November 2018.
  28. "Peña Nieto fue sordo ¿Y AMLO?". Animal Político. 28 November 2018.
  29. "Antonio Attolini Murra lidera la cara de los jóvenes en Morena". www.milenio.com.
  30. Preciado, Tlaulli. "Integrantes de Yo Soy 132 se unirán a Morena". www.launion.com.mx.
  31. "What is MORENA?". LaJornada (in Spanish). 6 October 2011.
  32. "After July, MORENA will be a political party". Diario Cambio (in Spanish). 19 January 2012.
  33. "La Separación de López Obrador Del PRD Fue un "Divorcio Por Conveniencia"". Expansion. Retrieved 9 July 2018.
  34. "Sólo 21% a favor que Morena sea partido político: Parametría". Animal Politico. Retrieved 6 July 2018.
  35. "Solicita Morena al IFE su registro como partido político". Aristegui Noticias. Retrieved 6 July 2018.
  36. Lara Paz, Ana Paola. "AMLO indicó que se salió del PRD porque los dirigentes de ese partido se fueron con EPN y traicionaron al pueblo". MVS Noticias. Retrieved 9 July 2018.
  37. Chouza, Paula. "Mexico's López Obrador registers new leftist party to run in 2015 election". El Pais. Retrieved 6 July 2018.
  38. Zepeda, Aurora. "Aprueban tres nuevos partidos; a partir de agosto recibirán dinero público". Excelsior. Retrieved 6 July 2018.
  39. Digital, Milenio. "PT acuerda ir con Morena por la Presidencia en el 2018". Milenio. Retrieved 5 September 2017.
  40. "Aprueba PT coalición con Morena en elecciones de 2018". SDPnoticias.com. 25 June 2017. Retrieved 5 September 2017.
  41. "PRD avala "frente amplio" en 2018; PT se va con Morena (Documento)". aristeguinoticias.com. Retrieved 5 September 2017.
  42. García, Carina. "PT va con MORENA y reelige a Alberto Anaya en liderazgo". El Universal. Retrieved 26 June 2018.
  43. "Prd amlo alianza 2018". www.animalpolitico.com. Retrieved 5 September 2017.
  44. "No negociaremos con el PRI; vamos solos o con Morena: PES". Excélsior. 7 December 2017. Retrieved 9 December 2017.
  45. "Partido del Trabajo y Encuentro Social anuncian coalición con Morena". Expansión. Retrieved 13 December 2017.
  46. Nación321 (13 December 2017). "Morena y Encuentro Social oficializan su unión rumbo a 2018". Retrieved 13 December 2017.
  47. Redacción (13 December 2017). "Morena, PT y Encuentro Social firman coalición rumbo a elección de 2018". El Financiero. Retrieved 13 December 2017.
  48. Zavala, Misael (13 December 2017). "Firman acuerdo Morena, PES y PT para ir en coalición". El Universal. Retrieved 13 December 2017.
  49. Camhaji, Elías (13 December 2017). "López Obrador se alía con el conservador Encuentro Social para las elecciones de 2018". El País. Retrieved 13 December 2017.
  50. "En Morena creemos en la inclusión: Yeidckol ante las críticas por alianza con el PES". El Financiero Bloomberg. 13 December 2017. Retrieved 14 December 2017 – via YouTube.
  51. "La única opción para cambiar el país es la que encabeza AMLO: Hugo Eric Flores". El Financiero Bloomberg. 13 December 2017. Retrieved 14 December 2017 – via YouTube.
  52. "Morena se opondrá al neoliberalismo en gabinete: Polevnsky". El Siglo de Torreón. 17 August 2018. Retrieved 27 September 2018.
  53. "MORENA proyecto alternativo al neoliberalismo: AMLO". Regeneración. 7 March 2011. Retrieved 27 September 2018.
  54. Vergara, Rosalía (19 June 2018). "Morena, en 'alerta roja' ante eventual privatización de Pemex". Proceso. Retrieved 27 September 2018.
  55. "Programa de Morena" (PDF). Retrieved 16 September 2018.
  56. Gómez Romero, Luis (8 February 2019). "López Obrador Takes On Corruption And Poverty In Mexico Through Austerity". Pacific Standard Magazine. Retrieved 12 February 2019.
  57. López Montiel, Gustavo. "El futuro de los partidos después de la elección". Forbes Mexico. Retrieved 31 July 2018.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.