129-72. That is the result of the vote held this weekend in PRD's national council, where a majority favors having a vote among party members to settle the question of whether or not to go into alliance with the PAN in upcoming gubernatorial elections.
By extension, it is also a measure of strength between the moderate social democratic camp in the PRD, and the anti-institutional movement advocates of AMLO's supporters. These are not wholly coterminous - there are, of course, very valid ideological arguments to oppose an alliance with PAN - but given the polarization and larger division within the party over whether to be a more institutionalized European-style social democratic party, or whether to be a much more personalistic movement-party around AMLO, the vote essentially reflects the strength of these two groups.
It also reflects the inherent contradictions of the "populist" and "radical" sectors around AMLO, which so often claim to represent the "people" and party base against a purported hijacked party leadership, yet which in the end opposed actually leaving this decision to the party members. The logic may be summarized as follows: why bother to ask when one already "knows" the will of the people? It also exposes them as rather than representing the people, to have actually fear of their opinions.
The "G-8" group, consisting of factions loyal to AMLO, already announced they would not participate in the vote over the alliance. This begs the question: Why did they even engage in the vote in PRD's national council, when they had already decided to not participate? Because these group, whose largest component is the IDN led by Dolores Padierna, does not respect the majority decisions, e.g democracy, of the party. If it loses a vote, rather than to accept the outcome, it simply decides to ignore it. In the long run, as the PRD seeks to establish itself as a modern, democratic, liberal party of the center-left, would the PRD simply be better off without them?
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