México is gearing up for “mid-term” elections. Unlike in the US, Mexican presidents can only serve one six-year term. But having support in Congress remains critical to their success. What seats will be filled this July in México’s mid-terms?

Javier Bravo: Fifteen of México’s 32 states will have races for governor, and 500 deputy seats in the lower house of Congress will be open as well. This will be the first big election since Morena’s landslide victory in 2018, and the stakes could hardly be higher.

Polls have Morena still widely popular. What’s worrying you?

With the pandemic, instead of having speaking tours where we can talk to people in-person, campaigning must be done online. In México, this makes for a real issue, since only 70 percent of our territory has access to the internet. And then we also have the constant attacks on AMLO from the right. The media are overflowing with outright lies. Even when we present the facts the next day, damage is done.

But the biggest problem: Morena has an internal rule that anyone, not just Morena members, can run for office on the Morena ticket. Opportunists from the conservative PAN and PRI are registering as Morena candidates and are "legally infiltrating" Morena. AMLO wants a moral revolution. He believes that everyone can change for the better. But in current conditions this "knife cuts both ways.” I am convinced that this particular rule in Morena´s statute has to be modified.

México currently has two party coalitions, one conservative and one progressive, right?

The conservatives working together include the PAN, PRI, and the PRD, originally a center-left party that split off from the PRI. AMLO came from that tradition.  But now we see that the PRD has degenerated into a party really no different from the “PRIAN,” as we call the two-headed PRI-PAN monster!

Joining Morena’s coalition we have the Partido de Trabajadores, a socialist party, and the Green Party. But this Green Party isn’t green or progressive. It opposes many social rights like the right to abortion and gay marriage.

What are Morena activists doing to keep people on their side?

Grassroots organizers — I’m one of them — are working within thousands of sectional committees for the promotion and defense of the vote and for political principles. We’re distributing Regeneración, our party’s national publication, widely. We’re working to help people understand the radical importance of transforming social benefits from simple government programs into constitutional rights that need defending just as strongly as basic worker rights.

Is there anything Morena needs from its allies to the north?

AMLO has imperfections — who doesn’t? — and makes mistakes. We shouldn’t overlook these. But focusing mainly on the negative only hurts México’s chance to get rid of the neoliberal policies of the PAN and PRI. Morena needs progressives in the US to keep pushing Biden to honor his promises for a whole series of progressive measures.

Those changes, especially on migration, could free Morena to do more to help México’s people.