Follow Up To A Follow Up

Rat-holing on politics

Claudia Sheinbuam announcing her resignation as mayor of Mexico City

I am digging a deep hole here. I am risking dragging Mexico Listo into the dark and dangerous world of (gasp) political reporting.

Or worse, I will be seen as having a fixation on the Morena political party, and its motley crew.

Well, I assure you I do not have any AMLO (Andrés Manuel López Obrador, uncolloquially) posters in my house. Nor do I hang out outside the Palacio Nacional hoping for a glimpse of Mexican presidents past, present, or future.

But hey - I started this thread on the upcoming presidential election in Mexico, and I'll be damned if I'm just going to sit here and watch it unravel due to my own inattentiveness. Or maybe I just can't come up with other topics. You be the judge.

And while you're busy judging me, let me get this out of the way: I acknowledge that Morena is a deeply problematic political party, and that its head - AMLO - is a deeply problematic political figure. But does that mean I shouldn't talk about that party, or the office of the president? No, I don't think so. It just means I shouldn't talk about these things breathlessly. I am breathing. Really I am. In with the good air, out with the bad.

Look - the reality is that at this point in history, Morena is the only party that has any significant traction in Mexico. And the reality is that - with what we know today - the next president of Mexico will likely come from the Morena party. Which is why when I talk about the upcoming presidential election, I focus on the Morena candidates. Of course, all that could change. The general election is still a year away, and a new party or a popular candidate from another party may materialize sometime within the next year. Or the Morena party or one of its candidates could do something wildly unpopular. Anything is possible, especially in politics.

With that long-winded preamble out of the way, let's get to the update. In my last article, I noted that AMLO had asked that Morena party presidential nominee hopefuls resign their current positions in order to focus on their run to be the Morena candidate. I questioned whether Claudia Sheinbuam - current mayor of Mexico City and the leader in the polls to be Morena's nominee for president - would in fact resign her mayorship, especially given her earlier statement that she would not.

Well, AMLO's ask was really an edict, and Sheinbaum announced on Monday that she will resign as mayor of Mexico City effective this Friday. Who will replace her is still an unanswered question.

The Morena National Council also recently stated that it will announce the winner of their polling process to determine their nominee for president on September 6th. So, will we have an historic moment in Mexico wherein the leading party's candidate for the country's highest office is a woman? We'll know the answer to that question before the end of the summer.