THE 1935 FORMULA FOR 2025?

This editorial by Lorenzo Meyer appeared in the May 22, 2025 edition of Sin Embargo.

The premise behind this column is the following: it seems that today the lurking enemy is, on the one hand, organized crime, but on the other, there is the internal enemy, lurking, not very evident but which in the long run could bring down the Fourth Transformation project. This latter danger is more serious than partisan opposition or the pressure and interest groups of big capital. It is a less obvious one that has already begun to filter into the heterogeneous universe of the Morena party in power.

One example is the appointment of Adrián Rubalcava as director of Mexico City’s Metro Collective Transportation System (STCM). This appointment sparked a heated discussion about the nature of the individuals who should be in charge of “the government’s nerves” in the era of the 4th Transformation). This is the appointment of the former mayor of Cuajimalpa as head of the capital’s metro. As recently as 2023, he sought to be nominated as the candidate for Mayor of the capital by the PRI-PAN-PRD parties, but when he failed to win, simply opted to resign from the PRI and immediately offer his support as a “political operator” to Morena’s presidential candidate, Claudia Sheinbaum. Rubalcava thus became one of several straws that are already breaking the camel’s back, raising doubts about the suitability of certain political and administrative appointments that the 4T has placed in the hands of figures whose political biographies simply do not fit the profile painted by President Sheinbaum herself as ideally suited to carry out the ambitious transformation project she is spearheading.

A letter that the President herself addressed to her party members, made public on May 4, is a precise decalogue of what “must be” for those who comprise the ranks of a political movement committed to transforming Mexico under the motto “for the good of all, the poor first.” For the President, those elected or appointed to implement regime change must not only strictly observe Morena’s famous “do not steal, do not lie, and do not betray” principles, but must also demonstrate, through their daily conduct and their way of life, that they have effectively internalized the values ​​of a new public morality that rejects ostentation, waste, and corruption, and is free from the acts of arrogance or abuse of privilege that characterized the old regime. Finally, the President also asked those who accompany her in the far from easy task of transforming the form and substance of the government’s nature not to forget where they come from, their origins.

And it is precisely in this “where they come from” issue of origin that a serious problem for certain cadres of the 4T emerges with complete clarity. There is a group of “political operatives” who may not be very numerous, but who are very conspicuous both in the Federal Government and Congress, as well as at the state and municipal levels, who do not want to remember, or be reminded by anyone, where they come from and why they have come to join the ranks of the 4T. In these cases, the underlying question is not why they joined the 4T, but why does the 4T want them in its ranks? At this point in their lives, it is impossible to imagine that they could undergo a conversion like that of Saint Paul on his way to Damascus—from persecuting Christians to becoming their leader—and that they would now effectively identify with the morals and values ​​of the leftist movement currently in power.

Why does a well-positioned President today want or need “operators” like Rubalcava, who emerged from and were trained in the ways and customs of the PRI or in equally reprehensible environments?

After seven months in office, supported by 35.9 million votes and with a popularity rating in opinion polls hovering around 80 percent, President Sheinbaum is now the effective and undisputed political leader not only of Morena but of the entire Mexican political system. Hence the question: Why does a well-positioned President today want or need “operators” like Rubalcava, who emerged from and were trained in the ways and customs of the PRI or in equally reprehensible environments?

It is true that during Morena’s formative years, the creator of that party-movement and architect of the process that led Morenism to become what it is today, former President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO), had to open his opposition movement to elements trained in the PRI, the PAN, and similar parties, even though they had little or nothing to do with the left or with Morena’s national project. But that occurred during the difficult and uncertain period in which AMLO and his followers had to confront and defeat the heirs of what was, for a long time, the most successful authoritarian regime in Latin America and which was even held up as a model to imitate in the world of systems in transition (see, for example, Samuel P. Huntington and Clement H. Moore in Authoritarian Politics in Modern Society: The Dynamics of Established One-Party Systems, 1970).

However, today it seems not only unnecessary but dangerous to shelter late-stage converts in positions of responsibility within the new regime. It is assumed that in the case of the STCM, it is possible to find engineers and technicians within Morena, or at least in circles not created under the shadow of the PRI, who understand this transportation system and, with the President’s support, can manage the relationship with the inherited union leaders.

Well, now let’s finally move on to giving meaning to the title of this column, to 1935. In that year, upon assuming the Presidency, General Lázaro Cárdenas struck a blow on the national political game board and got rid of almost all the elements that did not support his political project. Exactly 90 years ago, President Cárdenas, with the tacit support of the military commanders, purged his government of elements uncommitted to his proposal to implement the Six-Year Plan. And Cárdenas got his way. Today, President Sheinbaum has no reason to resort to or tolerate figures who until recently were part of the old regime. The President doesn’t even need, like Cárdenas, to ensure the loyalty of the armed forces; she already has that. And most importantly, from the beginning of Sheinbaum’s term, AMLO explicitly renounced playing the role of “Maximum Chief” that Calles held from 1929 to 1935.

Let’s take a closer look at this last point. To ensure the success of the institutionalization of the great regime change, AMLO knew he had to forgo the possibility of remaining at the center of the political process for six years. That forgoing was and is a sine qua non condition for allowing the Presidency to fully play its role as the effective center of major decisions regarding the continued construction of the 4T. And in this process, we must prevent certain underlying malformations from consolidating and transforming into permanent deformities.

Originally, Morena was nourished and survived thanks to the amalgamation achieved by AMLO, which blended originally incompatible elements: former PRI members with former PAN members, plus a strong variety of leftists trained and seasoned in the struggle against the old PRI or PRI-PAN system. The left that preceded Morena, and from which Morena drew, paid a high price for its original activism, ranging from condemnation to irrelevance, economic and social marginalization, and even extreme repression. Nothing similar can be found in the careers of the PRI-PAN members who have joined Morena.

The “Rubalcava case” is striking because for the average citizen it is not clear why a cadre who was a PRI member only yesterday was responsible for managing a complicated transportation system in the capital, but who also means managing a payroll of more than 14,000 employees grouped in a very strategic union, a budget of around 23 billion pesos (equivalent to the budget of the state of Puebla) and also appointing figures from his own political team, already consolidated in Cuajimalpa, as administrators of the system.

In short, perhaps sooner rather than later the President could dispense with the “operators” seasoned in the old system, who could cease to be a help and become a burden, and entrust positions of responsibility to people socialized not in the practices of the past but in the new politics, the one desired for the future.

Lorenzo Meyer Cossío is a historian and political scientist specializing in international relations and political processes in Mexico. He earned his bachelor’s and doctorate degrees in International Relations from the Center for International Studies (CEI) at El Colegio de México (Colmex), and a postdoctoral degree in Political Science from the University of Chicago. He is the author, co-author, and editor of more than 30 reference books on Mexican history and politics. He has received national and international distinctions, including Professor Emeritus of the National System of Researchers of the National Council for Science and Technology, Professor Emeritus of El Colegio de México, and the 2011 recipient of the National Prize for Sciences and Arts of Mexico.