Joe sent me this tweet, which personalizes what’s going on with Ruebén Rocha Moya and therefore gets it wrong:
Let’s talk about Rubén Rocha Moya. Whether or not he’s a close ally of AMLO, he’s got himself in some possible trouble. The 76 year-old governor of Sinaloa was indicted in April in the US on weapons and drug trafficking charges. It’s unclear whether these charges are legit — I wrote about the suspicious coincidence that the charges were lodged very shortly after Chihuahua Governor Maru Campos was caught letting CIA agents participate in raids in her state. Campos is a member of the conservative PAN party. Rocha Moya is a member of the ruling Morena Party.
After the charges became public, Rocha Moya took a leave of absence. But, last Friday, he decided to take his old job back. His decision was not well received. It was immediately condemned by the Morena Party. (I heard somewhere that all of the Morena governors as well as Clara Brugada, essentially the chief executive of Mexico City, also condemned his return, but don’t quote me on that.) Claudia was sick with the flu and had taken the day off Friday. However, on Saturday she sent out this tweet (auto translated) that was widely and correctly believed to be about Rocha Moya’s return:
On the same day that Claudia sent out this tweet, Rocha Moya backtracked and requested indefinite leave. (Message sent, message received.) Claudia followed up on Wednesday saying that the woman who is likely to be installed as the interim governor of Sinaloa is honest and hard working.
Back to the tweet Joe sent me, quoted above. The notion that this was a “watershed moment” in Claudia’s presidency is nonsense. The whole thing has essentially been forgotten a week later. Second, there was an immediate, visceral and party-wide reaction to Rocha Moya’s return, and it was uniformly negative. The Morena Party, which has recently gotten a new, aggressive leader, Ariadna Montiel Reyes, was out quickly with a statement before Claudia could say anything. Morena acted quickly because, in part, they’re reacting to the conservative media and political claims that the Sheinbaum government is a narco-government, which is nonsense. Rocha Moya’s return didn’t help with Morena’s desire to be squeaky clean, so he’s out.
The shallow understanding of the power dynamics between Claudia and AMLO at the heart of the tweet above begin with an inability to perceive the type of ego and goals that AMLO has. AMLO certainly had the ability to be petty with reporters and take the bait from enemies, but overall I stand by what I wrote a while back:
[…[ AMLO is famous for not even having a cell phone — he gets his news from staffers a day or two late. He’s been staying at his ranch writing books that emphasize Mexico’s rightful place in the world. His first thick tome, Grandeza, came out last December, and his next one, Gloria, is a work in progress. His only public statements about Claudia have stated that he will intervene only if he thinks that her presidency or Mexican sovereignty is in danger. AMLO is a huge ego and a bit of an oddball, but his ego is so big that, paradoxically, it’s attached to the success of Claudia and the Fourth Transformation of Mexico, the project of the Morena Party that he founded. This is the key point to understanding his actions: he wants to be judged as a transformational Mexican hero, and the only way that happens is if the transformation is successful. He didn’t pick a weak successor, for this very reason.
If you drive through Mexico, there are countless statues of revolutionary heroes and streets named after them (more than here because they had more revolutions). AMLO wants to be the hero of his revolution, and the only way that happens is if his revolution succeeds. He picked Claudia Sheinbaum because she’s tough as nails, whip smart and committed to the project of the Fourth Transformation. I am sure that Andrés Manuel López Obrador is not sitting up nights writing little notes to Claudia Sheinbaum telling her how to run the country. She knows how because she is committed to the vision of the Fourth Transformation and the party AMLO founded, Morena, “La Esperanza de Mexico” (the hope of Mexico). Her success is how he is going to end up on statues and on street signs.
Contrast this with the way that Nancy Pelosi picked her successor. And imagine any member of any party in the US writing a tweet like Claudia’s. Enough said about that.
Moving on to los chapulines (the plural of “chapulin” in the title), these are grasshoppers that are eaten in Mexico.
Yum!
It’s also a slang term for people who joined Morena from other parties just to be hangers-on, who aren’t deeply committed to the project of the Fourth Transformation. I wrote about Claudia giving some chapulines a “warm scolding” and denying them a photo op in San Quintin, Baja California, earlier this year. The Mexican political commentators I read, including some who’ve been on the podcast, agree that these hangers on are a problem that needs to be dealt with. When you consistently have 70% approval, a leader like Claudia has the luxury to address issues like johnny-come-latelys who just want to use her party label to win their election.
It’s not fair to call Rocha Moya a chapulin. He started his political career as a communist, so he’s by no means a newcomer to leftist politics. Still, he made a big mistake, and he backed down in a day and a half. There was no hand-wringing, no drip, drip, drip. It’s the opposite of a scandal — it’s an example of how a well-functioning political party deals with someone who doesn’t get it.
