“The main candidates are already campaigning, and it is going to accelerate… The rules were changed a long time ago, now it is no longer ‘the one who moves does not appear in the photo’, it is the other way around, those who move before have more likely to remain as a candidate or as president. Morena is gaining ground against the opposition”, warns historian and political analyst José Antonio Crespo.
The first banner for the presidential race was given by President Andrés Manuel López Obrador himself. Weeks after the 2021 elections, he listed three women and three men who could be Morena’s second candidate for the Presidency of the Republic: the head of the Government of Mexico City, Claudia Sheinbaum, Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard; the Secretary of Energy, Rocío Nahle; the Mexican ambassador to the United Nations Organization, Juan Ramón de la Fuente; the head of Economy and his former campaign manager, Tatiana Clouthier, and the Mexican ambassador to the United States, Esteban Moctezuma.
Months later, a seventh option would be added, which has become the third best positioned in the polls: Adán Augusto López. With his arrival at the Ministry of the Interior and the president’s first circle, there was speculation about a possible nomination for 2024, which he initially took it upon himself to deny. “ I don’t sweat other people’s fevers . I already told you that I have a commitment to the President, who invited me to accompany him in this task.”
However, once again it was President López Obrador who added him to the deck of possible candidates for the presidency. After finishing a meeting with deputies from Morena and its allies, the Green Ecologist and Labor, the president asked them “Right, tell me yes or no: do we really have a good Secretary of the Interior?”, which generated cries of yes and that some legislators stood up and chanted president, president!
AMLO submits Adán Augusto’s popularity to consultation
According to some polls, with two years to go before the presidential elections, there are three who are ahead in the presidential race: Ebrard and Sheinbaum (in a technical tie) and Adán Augusto López.
The three “placed” in recent weeks in the north, center and south of the country, where they were received with shouts of President! or president! Their tours had the endorsement of President López Obrador, who said that they could attend rallies if they do not have a job or have already done their homework.”
“In the race for 2024, the president has already given the starting signal. The visits to the states of the presidential candidates are done with the authorization of the president, they do not do it on their own, it means that the president told them to move and take advantage because on the other side, in the opposition, nobody is moving”, comments Roy Campos, director of Consulta Mitofsky.
