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By KELIN DILLON

On Monday, June 26, just one week after Mexico’s in-power National Regeneration Movement’s (Morena) aspiring presidential candidates officially kicked off their campaign trail, the allied opposition parties – the National Action Party (PAN), Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) and Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) – officially revealed the Va por México collation’s rules for the selection of its presidential candidate in the 2024 elections.

At Monday’s conference, Va por México announced the creation of new collaboration between the coalition and civil societies called the Broad Front for Mexico (FAM), which will have its own citizen-led Technical Commitee and Observatory sectors in charge of the overseeing the three stages of the presidential candidate selection process and ultimate election of the FAM’s National Leader.

“The FAM has the active participation of Mexican citizens, where they are not only listened to, they will have a voice and vote in decisions, and most importantly, they will have the final decision in our presidential candidate,” announced Ana Lucía Medina, the organizer behind the march in support of the National Electoral Institute (INE), said at the time. 

According to Va por México and the FAM’s established rules for its electoral process, the registration period for the alliance’s presidential hopefuls will commence on July 4, and must collect collect 150,000 citizen signatures in support of their candidacy  to proceed to the next stage.

The remaining candidates will then face off in a public debate, which will then be followed by an opinion poll to determine the final three candidates selected for the next round.

After a round of public forums, Va por México will then launch an open citizen primary to determine its final choice for the coalition’s 2024 presidential candidate and the FAM’s National Leader, with the final selection set to be announced to the public on Sept. 3 – just three days before Morena officially announces its own candidate on Sept. 6.

“The mechanism reflects a democratic process, with direct primaries, with citizen participation from the beginning of the process, with a council that regulates the appointment of who will coordinate the efforts of the opposition front,” said PRI Deputy Guajardo Villarreal.

However, Va por México and the FAM’s methodologies were not well received by all of the participating party’s members, who criticized the details behind the opposition’s approach to selection process.

“The method is not party-based, nor is it fully citizen-based, nor is it a survey, nor is it an election open to all citizens. And I’m not going to put in the hands of business managers , unions with owners or partisan registers,” said Senator German Martinez.

Meanwhile, just before the announcement of Va por México’s rules, Mexican academic Sergio Aguayo withdrew from the coalition’s Citizen Electoral Committee, claiming the oversight process would be “controlled by the parties” and would not be autonomous as initially advertised.

For his part, political analyst and columnist for daily newspaper Reforma F. Bartolomé wrote of the coalition’s rules that “is not a perfect method, but it adds greater spaces for political competition and citizen participation.”