Mexican parties reach registration deadline

January 31 was the deadline for political groups to inform Mexico's Federal Electoral Institute (IFE) of their intention to become formal political parties, and this was reportedly done by an unprecedented 26 groupings including MORENA, the formation led by the veteran Leftist Andrés Manuel López Obrador. The IFE was now to consider their applications over a year and a half on the basis of legal requisites including having or mustering in that period at least 220,000 party militants and organizing at least 20 state gatherings with 3,000 participants or 200 district assemblies with 300 attending, La Jornada reported. Another requirement was that from January or February all expenses must be reported, presumably to the IFE. The daily observed that several parties were struck off the parties register this year for their inability to meet legal requisites, including the Social Democratic Party and the Authentic Party of the Mexican Revolution.

Group would become Mexico's "real" opposition party

Mexico's National Regeneration Movement (MORENA) led by the former presidential aspirant Andrés Manuel López Obrador took formal steps on 7 January toward becoming a party, its members vowing to garner extensive membership and insinuating this would become the main opposition to the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI). Members of Morena (Movimiento Regeneración Nacional) visited the Federal Electoral Institute (IFE) in Mexico City to formally notify it of Morena's intention to become a party. It was not immediately clear if this was a mere formality as Morena members have said or if approval was needed. In any case its members seemingly had scant regard for the IFE, which ratified the PRI's bitterly contested election in 2012 after rejecting all cheating allegations. They reportedly laughed when an IFE official welcomed them to the building as the "home of democracy." Mexico's Leftist parties insist the 2012 elections were fraud-ridden. Later addressing an IFE panel, party president Martí Batres Guadarrama denounced the Pact for Mexico signed between the PRI and the two main opposition parties - to ease reformist legislation - as "the PRI's dream and a reactionary utopia" intended to eliminate dissent, La Jornada reported on 8 January. "The PRI does not like democracy, plurality, discrepancy...that pact symbolises...a system of pseudo-governmental parties where everyone has the same opinion, a uniform...political society...but bad news for the PRI, if there is an opposition it is called Morena." He said Morena rejected the "neo-liberal model" and energy-related privatizations likely to be pursued the PRI government. Morena's impact would become apparent in time, and depend on how many members and ultimately votes it can garner. These were expected to be taken from the Democratic Revolutionary Party (PRD), the main Leftist party formerly led by López Obrador. On 8 January López Obrador addressed "hundreds" of supporters in Mexico City's historic central square, where he registered his membership and began a national campaign to win party members. He vowed to defend Mexico's oil as national property and curb tax rises being imposed by the "gang of ruffians" in the government, while affirming Morena's peaceful vocation, La Jornada reported. A post was set up where "dozens" registered their affiliation after López Obrador left. Party president Batres was reported to have said the same day that he expected 1.5 million Mexicans to join the party in 2013, "more than recently registered" for the National Action Party, the main conservative party. He was to present the party's financing plans on 9 January, Excelsior and Notimex reported.

Defections begin in Mexico's main Leftist party

Fifty members of the Democratic Revolutionary Party (PRD) from northern Mexico resigned from the party on 29-30 September and were to join the civic movement led by Andrés Manuel López Obrador, the former PRD leader who failed to win the presidency in July 2012. The move confirmed fears that López Obrador's split with the PRD after the general elections could divide the party and realign the Left. The 50 were from the state of Nuevo León and their departure was ostensibly in protest at the PRD's "anti-democratic" practice of appointing electoral candidates, CNN and Notimex reported. One defector, Roberto Benavides González, told Notimex that up to 200 party members could leave. Their destination would be the Movimiento de Regeneración Nacional (MORENA), a "civil association" that may become a formal political party before the next presidential elections. López Obrador and many on the Left vigorously challenged the results of the 2012 elections, though critics have claimed his populist style as candidate may have dissuaded some middle-class voters from voting for the Left and cost it the elections. Another recent defector, original party signatory and former parliamentarian Lenia Batres declared on 30 September that the PRD was now a "bureaucratic structure" with limited popular support. She told the website ADNPolítico that the PRD's leader Jesús Zambrano Grijalva had neglected the PRD's "political project" to maintain the unity of "jostling" factions that often had "absolutely opposed interests;" the PRD she said had thus "lost its way. It had a good idea of the country but was taken over by people who may not be of the Left. That is why we are going to Morena." Morena is to hold a congress in November, where it may decide whether or not to become a party. The PRD was founded in 1989 in a split from the governing Institutional Revolutionary Party.