Alfonso Durazo replaces Bertha Luján at the head of the Council of the icing party

Nestor Jimenez, Fabiola Martinez, and Roberto Garduno

Newspaper La Jornada
Sunday, September 18, 2022, p. 5

By acclamation and practically unanimously, the Morena congressmen finalized the renewal of their National Council and appointed the governor of Sonora, Alfonso Durazo, as the new president. They also renewed several secretaries of the National Executive Committee (CEN) with characters linked to the governors emanating from the party.

The change in the National Council occurs after it remained under the presidency of Bertha Luján since 2015.

In the morning, the morenista governors who attended the third Ordinary National Congress met in a hotel in Mexico City with the leader of the federal deputies of the guinda party, Ignacio Mier.

They had breakfast at eight in the morning and agreed to promote Durazo as president of the National Council, a body that statutorily represents the party’s second authority, below the National Congress but above the CEN.

It was the governor of Veracruz, Cuitláhuac García, who made the proposal to the Morenoites, backed by the head of the capital’s government, Claudia Sheinbaum; the Secretary of the Interior, Adán Augusto López Hernández, and the governors of Chiapas and Tabasco, Rutilio Escandón and Carlos Merino.

In the afternoon, the party statutes were adjusted to define that the governors of Morena will be part of the body, and they seek to integrate the President of the Republic, before which Andrés Manuel López Obrador declined to participate.

With this, greater powers are granted to the sonoran, who in conjunction with his functions as governor will be in charge of coordinating the lithium exploitation project.

In addition, as part of the reforms to Morena’s statutes, it was defined that the National Council must appoint a commission in charge of preparing the Nation project to deepen the transformation 2024-2030.

Similarly, the rest of the National Council was appointed, made up of 100 women and 100 men, as well as a hundred local leaders and outstanding militants.

After endorsing the reduction of the secretariats of the CEN to leave only 12 of the 21 that are currently in office, as well as establishing that the secretariats of Organization and Finance will be proposed by the president of the party – the point that caused the greatest division among the attendees–, the congressmen also renewed most of the CEN portfolios.

Until yesterday afternoon, it was outlined that Javier Cabiedes would remain as head of Finance, and Alejandro Peña, who already works as a political operator for the CEN, was defined as Secretary of Organization, in charge of the registry of militants. In the rest of the portfolios of the management body, profiles close to other governors were projected.

At the close of this edition, the formulation of proposals to integrate the CEN continued, in a vote that was expected to conclude at dawn.