Mexico’s opposition doesn’t get AMLO’s playbook.

PRI leader Alejandro 'Alito' Moreno after protesters broke into Mexico's Senate, 10/09/24. Image credit: Luis Cortes, Reuters.

This week was devastating for Mexico’s opposition. President López Obrador (AMLO) succeeded in pushing through his judicial reforms while humiliating his opponents in the process.

AMLO’s narrative is simple: the old political guard is corrupt. That many of his own party members are drawn from this same class is both irrelevant and central to his strategy. By absorbing figures from the PRI and other parties, Morena underscores their weakness while subjugating them under AMLO’s agenda.

In this political theatre, humiliation is the point. Joining AMLO’s ranks requires submission, and in exchange for loyalty, past sins are absolved. Absolved not by justice or repentance, but by the pursuit of the Morena project.

This ritual of degradation was put on full display Tuesday with the case of Miguel Ángel Yunes Linares. When questioned about Yunes, a figure he once labelled as “vile” and “corrupt,” AMLO did not dodge the issue. According to El Financiero, he openly acknowledged the problem: “I have differences with him, they are public, notorious... but in politics, you must always choose between inconveniences and seek the balance between efficiency and principles.” He further added, “It is important how the majority was achieved. But we must also consider the benefit…for the country.”

In AMLO’s church, Yunes' alleged corruption, which he once denounced, is forgiven through the righteousness of his reforms.

This domination-through-politics approach manifested in another spectacle this week. On Monday, Interior Secretary Luisa Alcalde, flanked by AMLO, decried nepotism in the judiciary. She pointed out that half of judicial workers have relatives in the same system. The irony wasn’t lost: Alcalde’s own mother leads Morena’s National Council. Her father is AMLO's friend and according to Etcétera financially benefited from government policies. Her sister runs Mexico’s Social Security Institute.

Critics called it hypocrisy. But they missed the point. AMLO deliberately placed Alcalde in that uneasy position, forcing her to denounce practices that benefit her own family. It’s a tactic he’s honed over years. It keeps his inner circle in line while baiting the opposition into futile attacks.

For years, Mexico’s opposition has fallen for this trap. The PAN and PRI rail against Morena’s hypocrisy, as if corruption were new to Mexican politics. But in doing so, they shine a light on their own tainted past. To many ordinary Mexicans, Morena may be corrupt, but at least they feel like they're seeing results from the system.

Tuesday’s debacle was another bitter lesson. The opposition failed to stop AMLO’s reform, weakened not by external forces but by their own unresolved past. To be sure, Morena will struggle with the dissonance created by its catastrophic reforms. It won't matter. Until the opposition confronts their past, clean house, and create transparent processes, they will remain ineffective. Morena's grip will remain unbreakable until they do.