PAN reflects on July’s election defeat

The PAN marked the 70^th anniversary of its creation in 1939 at the same time that the ‘Committee of Reflection and Analysis’ headed by the anti-Calderón wing of the party presented its confidential report on the causes for the July election debacle. Senator Santiago Creel, one of the forces behind the committee, said he was satisified with the report, which he said highlighted the party’s abandonment of its ‘mystical origins,’ the failure to bring about the change that the citizens demanded, and defending the privileges of interest groups that prospered under the old regime and that the PAN had previously opposed. (Santiago Creel 9/13, Universal 9/13)

Fear and loathing inside the PAN

Only former presidential private secretary César Nava registered to run for PAN party president, after party elders including Santiago Creel and Manuel Espino said they would boycott the internal election. As previously reported, Creel had called for a period of ‘reflection’ on the causes of the PAN’s electoral defeat before rushing to new elect a new leader. According to the Bajo Reserva column: “The discontent among the 360 members of the [PAN’s] National Council is growing, and the group expressing its disagreement with ‘the imposition’ [of Nava] is not being reined in.… That Nava would be on his own and under a cloud is a terrible message for a party that has worked carefully over the decades to be competitive, to show itself as a model of democracy, and to be the best face of the country, argued the opponents of the so-called ‘official candidate.’” The PAN leadership vote will take place on August 8^th. (Universal 7/21, 7/27)

PAN: ‘Worst defeat in the party’s history’

The PAN started the process of electing a new party leader to replace Germán Martínez and rebuild after July 5.  Senator Santiago Creel published an open letter calling the election “the worst political defeat in the history” of the PAN.  He said, “We haven’t known how to combat intelligently the old regime.… We should recognize that the old authoritarian system continues in full force, and at times with renewed vigor or – as they say – with a ‘new attitude.’…We have protected governors that committed acts that the most basic sense of ethics should have caused us to repudiate and used every legal method to remove them from power.… We have defended union, peasant, and economic groups that are the corporatist, clientelistic, and anti-democratic pillars of the old regime.” (Reforma 7/13)