The bad experience in Mexico City, and the few states in which they came to govern, together with the cases of abuse and corruption in their ranks, and the cooptation of the party by a group, left a very bad taste in the mouth, and a significant rejection of various social segments.
During the six-year terms of Calderón and Peña, characterized by their disdain for the democratic and party system, things got worse. What remained of the left was marginalized and, particularly in Calderonismo, there were important conservative attacks on its social conquests.
With the peñismo, even the progressive wings of the PRI turned their backs, with honorable exceptions such as the medical marijuana reform achieved by the then senator Cristina Díaz. And already in the second half of the six-year term, social pressure forced to vent other battles in human rights.
However, in terms of political parties, it was during the peñismo that the PRD was given the final blow. And not only by the government, but by important groups of its own militancy led by the current president.
The creation of Morena was precisely the death stamp of the PRD, and of what was left of the Mexican left. Many of his historical leaders were subsumed into this movement that doesn’t even have a hand on the left.
Many progressive social groups naively believed that AMLO would champion their causes, despite the fact that his history as Head of Government of the capital showed otherwise. But given the fed up with the system that had been in place up to now, they decided to support it.
In a blatant way, on the day of his electoral triumph in 2018, in his celebratory speech in the Zócalo, López Obrador named himself the bearer of those historic flags of the Mexican left and the catalyst of that decades-long struggle.
Four years into his government, it is clear that it was the opposite, which was visible from his first year. That has led many of these groups, such as women and environmentalists, to have become not only disenchanted with, but turned away from, 4T.
