The PAN corrects strategy
On October 22, already in this 66th Legislature, the PAN again committed a vote against an initiative of a social nature by rejecting it in particular. It was the proposal for include social programs in the Constitution and formalize the reduction from 68 to 65 years of age so that older adults receive their Welfare Pension.
Before voting specifically, the PAN in the voice of deputy Federico Döring explained the meaning of the blue vote.
“The PAN Parliamentary Group voted in favor of the opinion in general, We want it to be clearly stated in the Diario de los Debates that we support social programs, But we deeply regret that none of the reservations presented by the Parliamentary Group were accepted, which had to do with the transparency of the registers (of beneficiaries), the locks against the electoral use of the programs,” he said on the stand.
Also the PAN deputy, Carmen Rocío González Alonso, asked to include in the reform file all the background of the discussion. She spoke on the stand in favor of the only reservation that was presented and approved, relating to specifying that housing for people must be adequate.
But in the Parliamentary Gazette appears the PAN vote againstin particular.
The correction came from the PAN bench in the Senate. On October 30, the opposition—including the PAN—in the upper house voted unanimously on the minute, which received 117 votes in favor.
Since then and until the end of the period, the PAN has maintained this new strategy of voting in favor of social initiatives and Senator Ricardo Anaya explains it like this:
“We are going to support everything that we believe is good for people and we are going to oppose what we consider to be harmful. “Social programs serve citizens, of course we are in favor of there being a Universal Pension for the Elderly, of course we do, that is why we voted in favor of establishing it in the Constitution.”
(Daniel Augusto/Cuartoscuro)
The Fox ‘effect’
The PAN does not want to repeat the scenario of the last presidential campaign, in which its position against the inclusion of the Pension for Adults Over 68 in the Constitution was the center of Morena’s disqualifications, despite the fact that the blue and white tried to clarify that he did support this reform, but had some reservations.
Questioned about this, Senator Anaya insisted: “politics is a communication challenge and we have a very important task as the National Action Party to deny the regime.”
In the latest Morenoist campaigns, including that of Claudia Sheinbaum, millions of Mexicans heard the voice of former President Vicente Fox in an interview: “The idiots don’t fit in the government and neither do they fit in the country. It’s over that they are receiving social programs, “Go to work, bastards, as Xóchitl says.”
The audio, heard at hundreds of campaign rallies by the then presidential candidate and then presidential candidate Sheinbaum, and other Morenoist standard bearers, was reinforced with the image, shown at a morning conference by then President López Obrador, on the vote on the reform, on March 10, 2020 in the Chamber of Deputies.
That day, 46 PAN deputies voted in general against the reform of Article 4 of the Constitution on Welfare matters, and 18 abstained from voting. In particular, 40 voted against, 4 abstained and 34 were not present.
(Photograph taken from the morning conference of former president Andrés Manuel López Obrador, June 9, 2023)
On March 24 of that same year, the PAN corrected it from the Senate – as in 2024 – and the reform was approved with 91 votes in favor and one against. Among the votes in favor was that of the then senator, Xóchitl Gálvez, who would later become the opposition candidate and, on her, “the lie” would fall that she voted against, since the only rejection vote was that of the blue and white senator, Marco Antonio Gama.
However, and despite the clarifications made by Gálvez, the discourse of Morenoist candidates and leaders and their allies was that “the PAN voted against the Pension for Seniors.”
“Through social programs (President López Obrador) made people feel that they belonged to him. And if someone else arrived they were going to remove the social programs. How much did it affect the vote? How many of the Mexicans have insecurity, lack of medicine, are abandoned in the countryside, but faced with the threat that I would remove the social programs? Well, they better decided to vote for Morena? We will never know that,” said the former candidate, days after the election in an interview with Radio Formula.
