As expected, things went very wrong in the PRD's internal election this weekend. The count was cancelled in five states - Mexico City, Chiapas, Zacatecas, Oaxaca and Veracruz - all key states for the party.
Having cried fraud for more than two weeks ahead of the contest, the discredited Dolores Padierna and her internal party faction IDN as expected managed to sabotage the election, and blamed Mexico City mayor Marcelo Ebrard for the disturbances. In several states, thugs loyal to the IDN resorted to violence against its party opponents, such as in Durango, where the infamous Cecilio Campos led groups armed with lead pipes that attacked their fellow party members.
If there ever was a case of the pot calling the kettle black, this is it: IDN and Padierna actively tried to
derail the process in order to make Marcelo Ebrard look bad. It his hard to understand this logic of "destroying your own party to save it" from a rational point of view, but from that of the IDN, who support the bid of Ebrard's rival Andrés Manuel López Obrador to become the presidential candidate of the left, it makes perfect sense to make the PRD, now led primarily by the social-democratic Nueva Izquierda faction close to Ebrard, look bad.
The party will likely make another attempt next weekend to hold elections in the remaining states.
