Fernanda Duran
The PAN triumph in the Senate and local district 5 would not have been achieved without the votes of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), in addition to the National Action Party (PAN) did not even have a competitive profile for the capital, this is how it responded Sara Rocha Medina in the face of tensions between both institutions that formed the coalition whose continuity is in doubt.
Throughout this week, the defeat at the polls has ignited the debate between PAN members and PRI members, even internally about the failed strategies and responsibilities for the defeat. They are now in disagreement about the path forward, reflection and separation.
In response to the assessments of PAN members such as the deputy Ruben Guajardo Barrera After considering leaving the coalition with the PRI, considering it as a burden in the election, the local leader of the tricolor, Rocha Medina, explained the percentages in which her party contributed so that competitions such as district five and the Senate won against the Green Environmental Party of Mexico (PVEM) and Morena, respectively.
“Indeed, the PAN had its 122 thousand votes in the capital, but if the PAN were alone it would lose the capital, these are real numbers (…) I want to make it very clear, our colleague and friend Rubén Guajardo would also lose votes from the PRI.”
This Friday, in a graphic breakdown, he explained how in the election for the local deputation National Action had 26 thousand 951 votes and the PRI 9 thousand 951giving a total of 39 thousand 360 in front of the 30 thousand 514 from second place with the Let’s Keep Making History coalition.
“So, my dear friend would not have won without those 10 thousand votes from the PRI,” he said ironically.
For their part, other PAN members have also considered that their party should not go back into coalition with the PRI for the 2027 electoral process, as Juan Francisco Aguilar Hernandezdeputy and former leader of the blue and white, who assured that in this election they were not added to but rather they were subtracted from votes for the PRI.
“In 2021, where I had the fortune of leading the National Action Party, it was the first state where the coalition with the PRI was signed and the results were bad, but the worst of all is stumbling upon again the same stone (…). The results were catastrophic, yes, today they have us as we are both at the national level and at the local level, so I think we should think about making collisions, yes, with another party that adds you, not with another party that subtracts you.” .
In addition to evidencing the decline of the PAN, “in the last legislature we had seven, in this six and now we are going to have, counting the two multi-member elections, four; Important municipalities with a PAN extract were lost, we only have two out of 58, they give me scenarios for reflection.”
Under the discourse of changing the party’s narrative, Sara Rocha Medina stated that the coalitions “are here to stay and if the PAN is not interested in going with us in the future, I assure you that there will be someone who will go with us. We will find someone to go with.”
While cases like the deputy Edmundo Torrescano Medinacoordinator of the PRI parliamentary group, have believed that it is the fault of all the results obtained by the tricolor party in the elections, which also denotes the divided positions in the PRI.
“Not winning is a failure, and that forces us to rethink the strategy that the party is following in order to see where we failed and how we rebuild.”
Given this, Sara Rocha criticized the previous leaders by mentioning that many loyal PRI members were abandoned by the previous leaders of the party, even during the last two governments of the tricolor.
Finally, he defended his position by pointing out that it is not the responsibility of all PRI members to abandon the party, since many of them are still loyal despite not receiving support from the leadership, in addition to the fact that some were fundamental in winning elections, such as in the case of Axtla, where they won the mayoralty by only one vote.
