The Mexican Left

Boz has a nice rundown on the Mexican midterm elections. What immediately struck me was how the Mexican left has fallen apart. AMLO left the PRD and formed Morena, which now means that neither gains many seats. The nine years since AMLO's occupation of central Mexico City have not been good for the party. Further, you would normally think a green party would lean left, but in Mexico the Green Party is quite conservative.

This is particularly unfortunate in a country that faces major human rights problems that conservative parties/governments aren't doing a good of handling, and in some cases are directly causing. In comparative perspective, the Colombian left is weak because it gets too much association with the FARC. In Brazil the right is weak in large part because of its association with the dictatorship. It's tempting to say a similar dynamic is at work in Mexico because of how AMLO went off the rails, but it's hard to say.

Regardless, I think the health of Mexican democracy depends on a strong left that can counterbalance the PAN and PRI. Unfortunately it's currently going in the opposite direction.