The National Regeneration Movement’s aspiring presidential candidates Secretary of the Interior Adán Augusto López, Mexico City Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum, Senator Ricardo Monreal, and Secretary of Foreign Affairs Marcelo Ebrard. Photo: Google

By KELIN DILLON

The battle for the succession of the National Regeneration Movement (Morena) candidate to follow in the footsteps of Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) officially kicked off on Monday, June 12, just one day after the National Council of Morena’s internal party meeting to determine the campaign rules for its potential presidential candidates on Sunday, June 11. Now, as aspiring candidates must follow the party’s stipulations to resign from their current government positions by Friday, June 16, in order to be a valid part of the race, a new wave of officials are rising up to take their posts in turn.

Six politicians have already announced their intentions to throw their hat in the ring, and have either already handed in their resignations or are preparing to resign from their present positions by the end of this week. Morena’s candidates include Secretary of the Interior Adán Augusto López, Secretary of Foreign Relations (SRE) Marcelo Ebrard, president of the Senate Political Coordination Board (Jucopo) and Morena Senate Coordinator Ricardo Monreal and the succession battle’s established frontrunner, Mexico City Governor Claudia Sheinbaum.

Morena’s electoral allies, the Green Party (PVEM) and Labor Party (PT) will likewise have a candidates in the race in the form of PVEM Senator Manuel Velasco and PT Deputy Gerardo Fernández Noroña, though the PVEM has notably already dismissed Velasco’s aspirations in favor of publicly announcing its support of Sheinbaum in her quest for the presidential candidacy.

Sheinbaum personally announced her resignation from her post as Mexico City governor on Monday, June 12, and is whispered by sources close to López Obrador to be the federal executive’s top choice for his successor, though AMLO publicly claims to have no favorites.

If Sheinbaum succeeds in her aims to win both the Morena candidacy and the 2024 presidential election, she would become both Mexico’s first woman and the first Jewish president in the history of the nation.

Following the National Council of Morena’s Sunday decision, the candidates’ campaigns will officially kick off on June 19, with polling for the population’s preferred candidate taking place at the end of August before the party’s presidential candidate is officially announced to the public on Sept. 6.

Now, the search to fill the void of the candidates’ high ranking government positions has begun – starting with Ebrard’s newly vacated post at the SRE, which was given to Mexico’s ambassador to Chile, Alicia Bárcena, on Monday, June 12, shortly after her predecessor’s own resignation.

As for the Mexico City governorship, the capital’s secretary of government under Sheinbaum, Martí Batres, is expected to serve as the provisional governor until the 2024 elections, when the Mexico City electorate will vote to choose a new head.

Aspiring candidates for the Mexico City governorship in 2024 include National Action Party (PAN) Senator Xochitl Gálvez, the Institutional Revolutionary Party’s (PRI) Cuajimalpa Mayor Adrián Ruvalcaba and Morena’s Iztapalapa Mayor Clara Brugada.

Mexico’s federal Secretary of Citizen Security Rosa Icela Rodríguez, who previously announced her aspirations to run for the capital governorship, officially dropped out of the running on Tuesday, June 13, while Mexico City Secretary of Citizen Security Omar García Harfuch – who continues to poll in the race’s top three candidates – maintains his intentions to forgo the election and instead stay in his present post.