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Morena (political party)
Mexican political party From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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The National Regeneration Movement (Spanish: Movimiento de Regeneración Nacional), commonly referred to by its syllabic abbreviation Morena ([moˈɾena]), is a left-wing political party in Mexico.[34] Founded in 2011 by Andrés Manuel López Obrador as a civil association and registered as a political party in 2014, it emerged from López Obrador’s break with the Party of the Democratic Revolution.[35][36][37] Since its formation, Morena has grown rapidly to become the dominant political force in the country.[34][38]
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Morena’s platform combines elements of left-wing populism, progressivism, and social democracy.[34][39] It opposes neoliberal economic policies and supports expanded social welfare programs, increased public investment in infrastructure, and state control over strategic industries such as energy, oil, and electricity.[34][39][40][41] Drawing substantial backing from working-class voters, rural communities, the urban poor, and regions historically underserved by federal investment, Morena positions itself as an alternative to the long-dominant Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) and the conservative National Action Party (PAN).[41][42][43]
As of 2025, Morena holds the presidency, majorities in both the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate, and most governorships, making it the largest political party in Mexico by representation.[44][45][46] It also holds significant influence over the federal judiciary, with many elected judges having ties to the party.[47][48] As of 2023, it is also the largest political party in Mexico by number of members.[49] The party’s dominance has reshaped Mexico’s political landscape, ushering in what some analysts describe as a new era of hegemony.[50][51][52]
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History
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Background
Following the 2006 presidential election, in which former Head of Government of Mexico City Andrés Manuel López Obrador alleged election fraud after narrowly losing to Felipe Calderón,[53][54] the left-wing parties that supported López Obrador's candidacy formed the legislative bloc Broad Progressive Front during the LX Legislature to promote his political platform and counteract Calderón's administration. However, during the legislative session, many legislators from the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD), the bloc's largest party, began to distance themselves from López Obrador, who was increasingly perceived as radical due to his election fraud claims.[55] In the 2008 PRD leadership election, Jesús Ortega, from the party's "Nueva Izquierda" (lit. 'New Left') faction, defeated López Obrador ally Alejandro Encinas Rodríguez for the party presidency.[56] "Nueva Izquierda" favored cooperation with other political forces, marking a shift away from López Obrador's confrontational strategy.[57][58]
In 2008, Calderón's administration introduced an energy reform that López Obrador and his followers argued was a step toward privatizing the state-owned petroleum company, Pemex.[59][60] In response, he organized the "Movimiento Nacional en Defensa del Petróleo, el Patrimonio y la Economía Popular" (lit. 'National Movement in Defense of Oil, Heritage, and the Popular Economy'), which mobilized supporters in rallies and sit-ins to oppose the measures.[59][61] The reform was ultimately approved with support from the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), the National Action Party (PAN), and factions of PRD legislators.[62] Due to this, in the 2009 legislative elections, López Obrador only endorsed candidates from the Labor Party (PT), Convergence (CON), or his faction of the PRD.[58][62]
Following the 2009 legislative elections, internal shifts within the PT and CON led both parties to participate in 2010 electoral coalitions with the PRD and the PAN in several key gubernatorial contests aimed at curbing the PRI's resurgence,[63] a strategy that further distanced López Obrador and his supporters from the PRD's leadership.[64][65]
Founding and early years (2011–2017)
Civil association
On 10 January 2011, López Obrador, drawing from his successful mobilization of activists during the "National Movement in Defense of Oil, Heritage, and the Popular Economy," announced the creation of a new social and political organization aimed at defending the vote ahead of the 2012 general election, naming it the National Regeneration Movement (Morena).[66][67] Morena was officially founded as a civil association on 2 October 2011,[67][68] with the goal of creating "Voter Defense Committees" in 66,000 electoral sections across Mexico to monitor for potential election fraud. According to López Obrador, the movement attracted nearly four million supporters within its first nine months.[69]
For the 2012 general election, López Obrador was once again nominated by the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD), Labor Party (PT), and Citizens' Movement (MC) in a coalition called the Progressive Movement. On election day, López Obrador's surveillance plan was successful, with Morena achieving total coverage across all 300 electoral districts. Despite these efforts, López Obrador once again finished in second place, losing to the PRI's Enrique Peña Nieto.
After the election, growing disagreements between López Obrador and the PRD leadership over the future of Morena led to López Obrador's departure from the PRD on 9 September 2012.[70] The PRD leadership had considered forming a legislative bloc with the PAN, a move López Obrador criticized, later accusing the party of having "betrayed the people" by aligning with both the PAN and later with Peña Nieto's PRI.[71][72]
Transition to a political party and first elections
On 20 November 2012, Morena's first National Congress took place, where it formally started its transition from a civil association to a political party.[73] During the congress, attendees approved the statutes and action plan for the party, elected 300 councillors to form the Morena National Council, and selected Martí Batres as president of the National Executive Committee.[74] While some PRD politicians, such as Ricardo Monreal, supported López Obrador's decision, describing it as a "divorce of convenience" to avoid further polarization in the country,[75] others, like Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas, criticized him, claiming it further splintered the Mexican left.[76] A 2012 poll indicated that a majority of the public held a negative view of Morena's establishment as a political party.[77]
On 7 January 2014, Batres submitted documents to the National Electoral Institute (INE) for registration as a political party.[78] The INE officially approved Morena on 10 July, allowing it to receive federal funds and participate in the 2015 legislative election.[76][79] In its electoral debut, the party won 35 seats in the Chamber of Deputies, becoming the fifth-largest parliamentary group. In the 2015 Federal District local elections, Morena managed to flip five boroughs from the PRD, marking its emergence as a political force in the Federal District.[80][81]
Over the following two years, Morena consolidated its organizational structure and positioned itself as an opposition to President Peña Nieto's administration, drawing on public dissatisfaction with the government and the Pact for Mexico reform agenda.[82][83] In the 2017 State of Mexico gubernatorial election, the Labor Party candidate withdrew in favor of Morena's nominee, who was narrowly defeated by the PRI candidate by a margin of approximately 2.8 percentage points, the party's closest electoral defeat to that date.[84]
Consolidation and the "Fourth Transformation" (2018–present)
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In the lead-up to the 2018 general election, López Obrador dismissed this possibility of a grand left-wing coalition, which would have encompassed Morena, the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD), the Labor Party (PT), and Citizens' Movement (MC), citing political differences and pointing to the PRD and MC's decisions to continue with their own campaigns rather than withdraw in favor of Morena's candidate during the 2017 State of Mexico gubernatorial election.[85] Instead, a coalition was formed with the PT and the right-wing Christian-conservative Social Encounter Party (PES).[86][87][88] López Obrador won the presidency with 53 percent of the vote, becoming the first candidate in modern Mexican democratic history to secure an outright majority.[89] Morena and its allies also gained majorities in both chambers of Congress, marking the beginning of what López Obrador termed the "Fourth Transformation" (4T) of public life in Mexico.[90][91]
The 4T program emphasized anti-corruption initiatives, expansion of social welfare, austerity for senior public officials, and increased state involvement in strategic sectors such as energy.[92][93] During the party's first years as the ruling party, Morena expanded its political base through defections from other parties, particularly the PRD.[94] Defectors often cited Morena's adherence to left-wing principles as a contrast to what they viewed as the ideological drift of their former parties. Among the most symbolically significant defectors was Ifigenia Martínez y Hernández, a prominent intellectual and founding member of the PRD.[95]
Morena's coalition grew in 2020 with the inclusion of the Ecologist Green Party of Mexico (PVEM), complementing its existing partnership with the PT.[96] Between 2021 and 2023, the Morena-led alliance consolidated power at the state level, winning gubernatorial races in 15 states previously governed by opposition parties.[46][97] Despite these gains, the coalition fell short of a congressional supermajority in the 2021 legislative elections, limiting its ability to entrench elements of the 4T in the constitution.[98] These included measures such as universal pensions, minimum wage increases above inflation, expanded healthcare access, constitutional protections for social programs, the centralization of government through the elimination of autonomous agencies, and judicial and electoral reforms.[99][100]
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Claudia Sheinbaum, who campaigned on continuing the 4T and advancing López Obrador's proposed constitutional reforms, won the presidency in 2024 with a larger share of the vote than López Obrador had received in 2018, becoming the first woman to hold the office in Mexico's history.[101] The election also gave Morena and its allies a supermajority in the Chamber of Deputies and left them three seats short of a supermajority in the Senate, which they later secured through party defections.[45][102] Sheinbaum described her administration as the "second floor" of the Fourth Transformation,[103][104] pursuing constitutional amendments and institutional reforms aimed at consolidating the political, social, and economic agenda established during López Obrador's presidency. During this period, Morena's broad control at the federal and state levels led several analysts and commentators to describe the party as approaching hegemonic status in the Mexican political system.[50][51][52]
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Name
The party's name also alludes to Mexico's Catholic national patroness: the Virgin of Guadalupe, known as La Morena.[105][106][107]
Ideology
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MORENA describes itself as a social democratic party that supports ethnic, religious, cultural, and sexual diversity, respect for human rights, and environmental care. It describes itself as an opponent of the neoliberal economic policies that Mexico began adopting in the 1980s. MORENA states that a new economic model is needed after the failures of neoliberalism in Mexico, which has resulted in increased corruption and inequality. The party supports "development through private and social business, promoting market competition, but exercising State responsibility in the strategic activities which the Constitution states" and proposes "a model that strengthens the inner market, fair wages; a model that promotes syndical freedom and democracy, where the State doesn't intervene in the inner affairs of the trade organizations".[108][109]
The party opposes the privatization of Pemex[110] and the granting of lands to foreign mining companies who "devastate the lands, pay no taxes, and harm the environment".[citation needed] MORENA also declares itself in favor of improving conditions for the Indigenous peoples of Mexico and implementing the 1996 San Andrés Accords, which were signed by the EZLN and representatives of the government but remained unenforced by President Ernesto Zedillo.[111] The party says it is against the monopolization of the mass media, especially television, by Televisa and TV Azteca, which in 2018 owned 90% of Mexican television.[112]
On social issues, the party's platform embraces a progressive agenda in favor of women's rights[113] and the LGBT community in Mexico,[114] supporting causes such as same-sex marriage and the decriminalization of abortion at the national level.[115] Andrés Manuel López Obrador became the first Mexican president-elect to include the LGBT community in an election victory speech.[116] Almost a year later, on 17 May 2019, López Obrador officially decreed the "National Day against Homophobia, Lesbophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia" in Mexico.[117]
The party advocates an alternative security strategy to the war on drugs, which was implemented in the country during the presidency of Felipe Calderón (2006–2012) and which they oppose, arguing that it is a "failed" strategy that has only sown "insecurity and instability" among Mexicans. Among other things, they advocate the legalization of drugs, such as marijuana, considering that such a proposal would make it possible to find "mechanisms for peace and the reconstruction of the social fabric".[118]
Contrary to other parties of the left, MORENA has not sought to reduce inequality by increasing taxes on the wealthy. Instead, the party has focused on reducing the pay gap between lower-level employees and high-level government workers' salaries, such as politicians and judges, through austerity measures. The party announced support for a plan by López Obrador to cut salaries of higher-ranking public officials (including the president), lay off up to 70 percent of non-unionized federal workers, and reduce spending by cracking down on corruption and tax fraud. As Article 94 of the Mexican Constitution prohibits reducing the salary of judges at any time during their appointment to maintain judicial independence, judges on the Supreme Court took a 25% pay cut starting in 2019.[119]
Initially, MORENA’s political strategy focused on anti-big business,[120] anti-bourgeoisie,[121] and anti-neoliberalism,[122] using socialist rhetoric to gain the support of the Mexican lower middle class.[according to whom?] It was later[when?] downplayed to gain the support of business leaders.[123][failed verification]
Pragmatism
Various outlets have described MORENA as a big tent party, "not in the strict sense a political party, but an alliance of diverse movements and political actors, whose main reference is its founder and presidential candidate, Andrés Manuel López Obrador". Due to López Obrador's pragmatism, some critics have claimed that MORENA is subject to López Obrador's decisions rather than having a more consistent ideology as a party.[124]
Introducing elections to the judiciary
In September 2024, then-President Obrador, with a majority in Congress, adopted a judicial reform that involved the direct election of justices, magistrates, and judges at the federal and state levels and reduced justices' tenure from 15 to 12 years. Obrador argued the reform would democratize the Mexican judiciary and reduce corruption in the system.[125][126]
The reform was highly controversial. Supporters argue, for example, that Mexico's judiciary is characterised by nepotism and favoring oligarchs;[127] the reforms shall make judges more accountable.[125] Critics like the Wilson Center[128] and the Washington Office on Latin America[129] said the reform would increase political influences of the judiciary and erode checks and balances in Mexico's seemingly resurgent single-party political system. The reform resulted in protests and a nationwide strike by judicial sector personnel.[130] Human Rights Watch said a justice reform is necessary due to corruption and a lack of due process in Mexican justice. However, they criticised that the reform won't change the big problem of prosecutors' willingness and capacity to investigate.[131] U.S. and Canadian diplomats issued public criticisms of the reform.[132]
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Structure
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Presidents
National Executive Committee
- Luisa María Alcalde Luján - President
- Carolina Rangel Gracida - General Secretary
- Andrés Manuel López Beltrán - Secretary of Organization
- Iván Herrera Zazueta - Secretary of Finance
- Camila Martínez Gutiérrez - Secretary of Communication, Press and Propaganda
- Enrique Dussel - Secretary of Education, Training and Political Capacity Building
- Carlos Alberto Figueroa Ibarra - Secretary of Defense of Human Rights
- Janix Liliana Castro Muñoz - Secretary of Studies and National Project
- Manuel Zavala Salazar - Secretary of Cooperativism, Solidarity Economy and Civil and Social Movements
- Aaron Enríquez García - Youth Secretary
- Adriana Grajales Gómez - Secretary of Women
- Bxido Xishe Jara Bolaños - Secretary of Indigenous Peoples
- Artemio Ortiz Hurtado - Secretary of Labor
- Gonzalo Machorro Martínez - Secretary of Production
- Arturo Martínez Nuñez - Secretary of Art and Culture
- Hugo Alberto Martínez Lino - Secretary of Defense of Sovereignty, the Environment and National Heritage
- Carlos Alberto Evangelista Aniceto - Secretary of the Fight against Corruption
- Martín Sandoval Soto - Secretary for the Strengthening of Moral, Spiritual, and Civic Ideas and Values
- Manuel Alejandro Robles Gómez - Secretary of Mexicans Abroad and International Policy
- Adolfo Villarreal Valladares - Secretary of Welfare
- Almendra Negrete - Secretary of Sexual Diversity
Publication
Morena publishes and distributes the newspaper Regeneración ; its name is taken from the publication of the same name that was clandestinely run by the Flores Magón brothers, journalists critical of the Porfirian regime prior to the Mexican Revolution. Morena defines its news organization as: "a tool of struggle, an agitator of ideas, an organizer of citizens, and a promoter of the revolution of consciences."[133][134]
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Election results
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Presidential elections
Legislative elections
Chamber of Deputies
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Senate elections
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See also
Notes
- Previously part of Juntos Haremos Historia (2017–2020) and Juntos Hacemos Historia (2020–2023).
- The seat distribution reflects the election results and does not take into account party switches during the legislative term.
References
External links
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