AMLO's Alternative Project for the Nation Reloaded

The event certainly allowed for some impressive pictures: the National Auditorium, filled with what La Jornada reports to be 9,000 attendees:

                                         Photo from La Jornada

AMLO launched his 2012 bid like in 2005, with an Alternative Project for the Nation, which reads pretty much just like his 2005 manifest. Yes, there are some new additions (this article sums them up well), but from what I can see, this is much the same program as that underpinning his first presidential campaign.

(From La Jornada, a paper that has unfortunately in the case of AMLO long since discarded any semblance of objectivity and rather functions as his unofficial mouthpiece, here's AMLO's speech in its entirety. And can any piece really be any more groveling than this "report" by Jaime Avilés?)

It is not that it is really a bad program - and as various observers have pointed out, it is in many ways quite centrist (more on this later). But so was his 2005 program. It is rather AMLO's discourse and lack of respect for the democratic process that people rightly perceive as "radical."

In any event: AMLO in addition, he reiterated the now-standard line to "not be confused" - the PAN and PRI are all the same. As this remains a key argument why he (now, as opposed to in the past) opposes any PRD-PAN tactical electoral alliance, it simply begs the question: If PAN and PRI all the same, why would PRI's return be so qualitatively worse than the current PAN administration?

PRD internal election: Despite outcome, election itself big step forward

One thing to note: PRD finally moved away from the highly destructive method of electing its leadership by mass party votes, which with no single exception has ended in turmoil, fights, fraud accusations, and general disaster for party unity and the party's general image. Now, the PRD's national council instead voted - and access was restricted to the plenary only through an emergency exit, credentials checked and double checked, and after depositing the vote, each councilor had indelible ink applied to the thumb, to avoid another cochinero. And when all is said and done: It worked.

First round:  154 votes for Jesús Zambrano, 111 for Dolores Padierna, and 43 for Armando Ríos Piter.
As no 2/3 majority reached - and would not be reached for either candidate - a deal was struck for a Zambrano-Padierna compromise ticket. This received 233 votes in favor and 36 against.

The PRD also voted to ban any alliance with PAN and PRI in 2012 - so now that's official, despite AMLO's insistence that he has secret information that PRD wants a PRD-PAN formula in 2012.

Other than that, the party postponed remaining business, such as who will fill the posts on its national Secretariat, and its National Political Commission. Given the drama over the weekend, no wonder.

And then she cleaned her hand: Institutionalized schizophrenia in PRD election

After PRD's new secretary general Dolores Padierna shook hands with the party's new president Jésus Zambrano for the photographers, she sat down to wipe her hand on the table, declaring, "Better to clean it, so as not to bring bad luck."

With the risk of indulging too much in the occurrence: Could any analogy better explain what is the likely outcome of PRD's new cohabitación?

As expected, PRD's new national president is Jésus Zambrano, of the social democratic faction Nueva Izquierda, NI. The party's secretary general will be Dolores Padierna, of the social movement-oriented Izquierda Democrática Nacional, IDN.  The two groups oppose each other on virtually every level - ideology, tactics, strategies, organization, personal animosity... and of course, on whether PRD should ally with PAN in the upcoming state elections. It is true that IDN discreetly backed the 2010 alliances, only to turn against them when AMLO's anti-alliance rhetoric became increasingly hysteric, yet I am willing to bet the PRD's new president and secretary general will be in other's throats within days over this very issue.

By electing a Zambrano-Padierna "compromise" - few other options existed, it seems, given the relations of strength in the party council - the PRD has now pretty much institutionalized the schizophrenia dividing the party - a loose social movement-organization following AMLO's dictates, or an institutionalized center-left party a-la Zapatero's PSOE in Spain - by naming one from every camp for the party's two top positions.

If the IDN, nominally led by Padierna but created by her husband René Bejarano, can be persuaded that Ebrard has a better winning chance than AMLO and throw their lot with the former, this oil-and-water marriage could have a happy outcome. Yet given that, in my analysis, the division between these two blocks has been the cause of the party's main fault lines since its founding, I remain very skeptical of the feasibility of this coexistence. I hope I am wrong.