The left-wing\u2019s rejection of the 27th and 28th Constitutional articles proposed by the Executive Power was to be expected. What is interesting is how two of the left\u2019s main protagonists, Andr\u00e9s Manuel L\u00f3pez Obrador and Cuauht\u00e9moc C\u00e1rdenas, who started defending the oil from different trenches, have decided to join (though not mix) efforts. This reunion will comprise, on one hand, C\u00e1rdenas\u2019 institutional legitimacy and historical leadership on the matter and, on the other hand, L\u00f3pez Obrador\u2019s popular mobilization capacity. Nevertheless, the chances of truly stopping the reform are scarce, which lead the following question: beyond defending oil, what are the motivations and potential benefits of a C\u00e1rdenas-L\u00f3pez Obrador alliance?
\nC\u00e1rdenas and L\u00f3pez Obrador\u2019s joint strategy materialized within the proposal of holding a referendum for the aforementioned reforms. Both politicians argue that the energy reform\u2019s validity should be in the hands of citizens and they should be the ones who decide whether opening up PEMEX to private investment is desirable or not. In addition, they demand that this referendum should occur before the approval of Pe\u00f1a Nieto\u2019s reform. This is as unlikely as to stop a PRI-PAN potential alliance in Congress with the aim of approving reform, given that a referendum, which is included in the 35th Constitutional article, still doesn\u2019t have the secondary legislation needed to be held and, as it that wasn\u2019t enough, the Constitution establishes that the referendum should occur at the same time as a federal election, which means that it couldn\u2019t happen before 2015.
\nRegardless of the chosen strategy, C\u00e1rdenas\u2019 motives to be involved alongside L\u00f3pez Obrador seem to deal with unifying the left on defending oil nationalism. This issue has been one of the political current\u2019s main pivots, so fighting separately would only have strengthened the perception over the egoism of its leaderships shown by the lack of agreements, even in matters considered to be common causes for this political sector. In this sense, the benefits that C\u00e1rdenas could obtain from this Pact seem to be more linked to protecting his legacy inside the left that ensuring his political existence within PRD.
\nUnlike C\u00e1rdenas, the benefits for L\u00f3pez Obrador with this alliance are more pragmatic and have a long-term vision. The main profit for the National Regeneration Movement\u2019s leader by joining forces with C\u00e1rdenas is to rebuild institutional legitimacy for his cause. In addition, this alliance tones down his rhetoric and gets him closer to a sector of the population who might agree with his motives but not necessarily with his means. L\u00f3pez Obrador has shown his decision to favor the institutional path by supporting the referendum and, in an unprecedented case, to acknowledge Pe\u00f1a\u2019s administration as a contact partner in a dialogue (unlikely, let it be said) to debate the government\u2019s reform projects. The \u201crenewed\u201d institutionalism of L\u00f3pez Obrador heads his political party in a path to obtain its registry in 2014 \u2013 without disregarding the importance of the streets as the main basis for his project.
\nIn the end, beyond the individual benefits both C\u00e1rdenas and L\u00f3pez Obrador might gain, the left wing is obtaining a sort of political responsibility and union from which it usually lacks, except on some electoral junctures \u2013 given its divisions. To form a common front against the energy reform allows the left-wing to be an actor capable of leaving its internal divisions aside in order to defend its ideals. However, it is not clear if this alliance will be common, especially when a true struggle over power is at stake. It seems clear that this alliance is more an internal political maneuver within the left rather than the country\u2019s energetic future.<\/p>\n
CIDAC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The left-wing\u2019s rejection of the 27th and 28th Constitutional articles
\nproposed by the Executive Power was to be expected. What is interesting
\nis how two of the left\u2019s main protagonists, Andr\u00e9s Manuel L\u00f3pez Obrador
\nand Cuauht\u00e9moc C\u00e1rdenas, who started defending the oil from different
\ntrenches, have decided to join (though not mix) efforts. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":4656,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[30],"class_list":["post-3425","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-weekly-political-analysis","tag-political-analysis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cidacmx.org\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3425","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cidacmx.org\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cidacmx.org\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cidacmx.org\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cidacmx.org\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3425"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/cidacmx.org\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3425\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4313,"href":"https:\/\/cidacmx.org\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3425\/revisions\/4313"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cidacmx.org\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4656"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cidacmx.org\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3425"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cidacmx.org\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3425"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cidacmx.org\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3425"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}