“Fight to survive as a party”: Patricia Armendáriz questioned the PRI for going against Electricity Reform

The vote is approaching on the Electricity Reform promoted by President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO), which has been harshly criticized by the opposition, and highly supported by supporters of the Fourth Transformation (Q4).

In order to seek the majority of votes in plenary to approve this legislative amendment, the deputies of the National Regeneration Movement (Morena) have carried out many strategies, up to the rescheduling of the session in which this proposal will be discussed, approved or rejected.

In addition, some members of the cherry party have demonstrated in different spaces to try to convince the opposition to vote in favor of this Reform.

Patricia Armendáriz, a Moreno businesswoman and legislator, joined these calls, and through her weekly opinion column published in the newspaper Milenio, not only called for a change of mind from her political rivals, but also issued a warning.

The former member of the Shark Tank program argued that the Electric Reform became the “arena of its struggle” of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) to survive as a political organization that will try to compete in the upcoming elections.

He also pointed out that this situation is “unfortunate” because it has generated political pressure in the Morena, PT and PVEM coalition, which clouds the “ideological manifestation” of the tricolor, which, he said, would vote for the Reformation if it was not struggling to survive.

“Unfortunately, electricity reform has been the arena of their struggle to survive as a party that will be heavily played in the next elections. And I say unfortunately because this struggle manifested in political pressure towards our coalition has clouded the ideological manifestation of a party that has traditionally been by the majorities, the central object of the Reformation, that if its decisions are not tinted for this survival, I am sure it would vote in favor”, said Armendariz.

He recalled that since October last year, when the deputies received the presidential proposal, López Obrador asked the PRI to stick to its principles, so he reminded them of a famous phrase by former President Adolfo López Mateos in which he warned of the dangers of privatizing the electricity industry.

“I am returning the electricity, which is the exclusive property of the Nation, but do not trust yourself because in future years some bad Mexicans identified with the worst causes in the country will try by subtle means to hand over oil and our resources again to foreign investors,” is the opening paragraph of the letter.

Despite this attempt at persuasion, the tricolor expressed its support, but with some changes, although it requested discussion after the June elections, this in order, Patricia Armendáriz denounced, to condition its support for “concessions of state leadership.”

López Obrador refused and demanded that the Chamber of Deputies hasten the pace to resolve the Reformation before the end of the second cycle of sessions, that is, during the month of April, a fact that alerted not only the PRI, but also the entire opposition.

For this reason, they decided to present a counter-reform with 12 main points, which were classified by the Morenista as “proponents towards fair treatment for the most vulnerable”, so she stressed that they were all accepted because they added to the president's proposal.

He accused the opposition of trying to “negotiate on the results of the revocation of mandate consultation”, as they wanted them not to be so forceful to influence the upcoming elections, which did not happen, as there were more votes than those received by Fox, Calderón and Meade in their respective elections.

As soon as they received the exit results, he mentioned that the PRI announced that it would vote against the reform, a point that he minimized, since he affirmed for the Morena coalition “the main objectives of the Reform have already been won through the results of the declaration of constitutionality of the Electricity Industry Law”.

Finally, she ruled that for her the one who will result as a loser will be the PRI, a party that had it remained faithful to its center-left principles, would have supported the Reformation and voted in favour of having greater chances of survival.

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