finally able to relax Claudia Sheinbaum on Wednesday night, when it was announced that she would be the coordinator of the committees for the defense of the fourth transformation, the gateway to the presidential candidacy. Although she was confident that this would be the case because she never stopped scoring in the polls, she took great care that her mentor, the president, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, will not bother with her, acting as a megaphone for her words and promoter of her works. But the good news that puts her on the path to being the first president of Mexico is also bad news. From today Sheinbaum will have to prove that she is not López Obrador’s puppet nor a hindrance, who is capable of acting autonomously and moving forward without their support.
The perception that without López Obrador behind is nothing, It has roots in the objective reasons why you opted for it.. A very strong one is that she was the only one of the corcholatas who owes her entire political career to the President. Another is to be more dogmatic than the President, so that his political project is not in danger of being truncated and that his legacy is shipwrecked. Sheinbaum is considered part of her family, with fraternal loyalties and not just political and ideological ones, and for years, His son Andrés has been his main political advisor.
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As he demonstrated during the first sui generis phase of the presidential campaign, Sheinbaum will not betray López Obrador. He will conclude the megaprojects that are not delivered on time, he will never criticize him, and from the Presidency he will legally shield him so that he can live peacefully in the event of criminal complaints that could be filed against him, or against his relatives. With her in the National Palace, López Obrador’s dream is guaranteed.
Sheinbaum’s problem is that she must win the election, and despite the help she will receive from her mentor, she is the one who will make the speeches, explain her proposals, and will have to convey credibility in her promises. and will debate alone against Xóchitl Gálvez, the candidate of the Frente Amplio, if a third contender does not appear. Sometimes it is forgotten that this will be the reality in 2024, when the uninformed and informed make a small analytical error. Gálvez’s rival will be Sheinbaum, not López Obrador. Who Gálvez has to defeat at the polls is the candidate, not the President. Sheinbaum is not López Obrador, and no one can assure that he will easily defeat the Frente Amplio candidate, as some supporters of the President believe.
By assuming the political coordination of Morena and having in her hands the symbolic baton of command, Sheinbaum moves to a new stadium, without the padding in the President’s bubble of protection and having to fend for herself, although López Obrador continues to help her with the systematic attack on Gálvez. They will walk together, but in different routes and strategies. Sheinbaum will have to build leadership within the 4T movement, because so far it is López Obrador who has lent him political capital. Separated as poles of power, that shared leadership will fade away. At the same time, by disaggregating the President, the positives that he has They will not be transferred automatically, as will most likely happen with the main negatives, such as insecurity.
Things slip for López Obrador, or he shakes them off with a talent soaked in a cynicism that he displays in the closed and fairly controlled environments where he interacts with the press. Sheinbaum is not the fish that always slips out of hand, like López Obrador, but rather a very stuffy politician who moves like an ocean liner and without the reflections of his mentor. This is a deficiency that media training has not resolved for who has submitted herself with discipline, because with talent you are born, not learned, a handicap that will accompany her in the campaign.
Sheinbaum’s future should not be evaluated based on his behavior during the fight for the candidacy. Having been a loudspeaker for the President and emphasizing his works, it was a strategic decision to avoid tensions with him and move with safe steps, managing the difference that the polls gave him. That stage, however, ended on Wednesday. The new game introduces it to a mined terrain that is difficult to overcomenot only in front of Gálvez, but above all, which is still a paradox, in front of the President.
Sheinbaum cannot bet his entire future on López Obrador, whose sixth year is uncertain, but he is doing it. There will be more revelations of corruption in his environment and compromising documentation of the Guacamaya Leaks. The megaprojects will show their scope or limitations, and will be a piñata for Republicans and Democrats in next year’s presidential elections in the United States. There may be imponderable variables that are not visible that affect López Obrador’s epilogue, such as a natural disaster or imported financial turbulence.
These variables can impact the popularity of the President and drag it along with him in a polarized election that will be plebiscitary. Sheinbaum, has demonstrated, lacks the resources of the President to weather the storms, and leaning on the fate of López Obrador is not the chain to which one should tie oneself, because you can fall into a trap that is difficult for you to escape. Nor can she continue to be a clone of the President, because that, whether the President does well or not, will revive the perception that she is López Obrador’s puppet.
If the six-year term concludes without incident, the offer of continuity that unites its clientele will work. Otherwise, demarcation may be necessary. Today it is not seen that Sheinbaum could do it nor could López Obrador allow it, because his lack of self-criticism would prevent him from recognizing that the preservation of his legacy would pass that painful concession. If that moment comes, the candidate would have her moment of truth, synthesized in the Shakespearean soliloquy of being or not being.
Twitter: @rivapa
