Below are remarks made by Eduardo Cervantes Díaz Lombardo on August 24, 2025 as part of a press conference by Morena’ CDMX Committee. Eduardo Cervantes Díaz is a founding member of Morena and was the first President of Morena’s CDMX. The topic of his remarks was political formation, in particular the importance of developing grassroots (or base) committees to organize the membership in a democratic fashion via territory and sector, contrasting them to the new push for sectional committees, which are currently being organized, primarily for electoral purposes and also political training, but are limited in their ability to participate in democratic decision-making within the party. He also addressed recent controversies around displays of wealth by Morena politicians, the presence of former PRI politicians in Morena, a lack of internal democracy in the party, and warned about the potential of electoral losses which might arise due to poor grassroots organizing in 2027 and 2030.
On September 4th, Eduardo Cervantes Díaz was removed from his position in the political training program of Morena CDMX’ State Executive Committee. Refering to his removal, Eduardo Cervantes Díaz wrote on his Facebook account, “This is due to the ideas and opinions expressed on the “La Chilanguera” YouTube channel, where I expressed ideas and opinions critical of the lack of internal democracy within MORENA and the fact that many of its members in positions of power oppose the foundations and objectives of our country’s transformation project.It’s regrettable the authoritarianism, censorship, and punishment of the collective political training work that has been carried out.”
Well, I’ll start by saying that I’m convinced of criticism. I consider it a necessary and inalienable right in a democratic, left-wing party like Morena, because without the exercise of criticism, mistakes are not recognized and therefore are not corrected, creating a downward snowball effect. So I’m going to exercise my right to criticism on the subject of political education.
I was invited by the Morena State Executive Committee to present a political training program. I have experience in the subject. I was also the first President of Morena in Mexico City, and particularly of President Hector Diaz Polanco. That program was introduced, it has been delayed, but in recent weeks and months it has accelerated: a political training program whose primary objective is to form grassroots Morena committees at the territorial level, meaning neighbourhoods, towns and housing units, which were called territorial units during Andrés Manuel’s administration at the head of the city. We believe that the electoral section committees fit into a grassroots committee, but not the other way around. So this is this fundamental idea of the program.
Well, we’re in a party where, for six years, from 2018 to 2024, the spaces for participation and the organizational instruments of our party were dismantled from ‘18 to ‘24. Don’t make me name names, but they’re obvious. The existence of grassroots committees and municipal committees was dismantled. There are no municipal Morena committees in Mexico, nor are there any grassroots committees.
The grassroots committee is a territorial implant, in terms of territory, in neighbourhoods, towns, housing units. It carries out systematic and ongoing work in providing information, training, and disseminating the transformation project. It gathers people’s proposals, concerns, and expectations, and these are used to develop government programs and actions. So, one objective of the political training program is to advance the development of internal democracy.
[Phone rings]
Sorry for the noise of this damn device.
Well, then I’m on the topic of the political training in and for the organization as a pedagogical concept.
That sounds bad, that they’re calling so often.
The pedagogical conception of this training process is political training in and for the organization, for political education within a political party and a fundamental objective of it is to form grassroots committees as spaces for participation and organizational instruments so that people, members of Morena, Morena militants, have a place to participate in a self-managed manager, which is another characteristic of the grassroots committee that we propose, that they be self-managed, which they defined organically.
Trriumphalism is so dangerous, because it hides what’s really happening. It’s essential that the party’s base take ownership of the party.
That is, they should have a work plan, they should prepare their work plan, they should show numerically, they should develop political information, they should have a dissemination program at different levels, art, culture, propaganda, etc., so that there is organic life at the base of our party. That’s a central element of the political training program: strengthening or developing internal democracy through the creation of grassroots committees in the region. And also, although they haven’t been present in Morena, grassroots committees in sectoral areas. There are workplaces, schools, and civil institutions where our party’s grassroots committees could also exist. This path to organizational construction, which Morena so desperately needs, has not been developed. But there are still grassroots committees, there could be grassroots committees on youth, women, and the environment. This means going beyond the strictly territorial scope, which is the priority are of organization work in the history of the PRD in our city and in our country.
Another essential objective of the political training program is to defend the alternative national project, to defend the project of transforming public life and changing the political regime in Mexico. Here on the left is a very famous quote from Andrés Manuel López Obrador, that speaks to the basic moral guidelines of our movement and our party. It says, “Do not steal, do not lie, and do not betray the people.” And we can say that on the other side of the coin, it’s yes to honesty, yes to truth, and yes to love for the people.
And this is the moral aspect of the project to transform public life, because in our party there are many people who lie, who are corrupt, and who don’t share the foundations of the project to transform Mexico. I believe Morena’s main enemy is within Morena, because speaking of the right, it’s political parties are in intensive care. It’s unclear how they’ll move forward in terms of their political leaders, the right, but in our party there’s a strong presence of the ideology and political culture of the old regime, and that affects the fundamental objectives of the project, which is the transformation of Mexico and the Obradorist project.
That’s the moral part, but there are other parts. There is a part that is historical. What is Morena’s continuity? What events? What programs? What projects? What leaderships? What popular participations? It is Morena continuity. We are a continuation of the Railway Movement of 1959. We are continuation of the electrical movement of the 1970s. We are a continuation of the student movement of ‘68 and the medical movement of ‘66. We are a continuation of Lucio Cabañas and Genaro Vázquez Rojas. Yes or no?
Lucio Cabañas
I think Morena is a continuation of the best cultural and fighting traditions of the Mexican people, which should be made clear in terms of their memory in these programs, projects and events. And part of that history is 50 years, from 1940 to 1989, when the PRD emerged, when the PRD was born, which was a struggle of the historic left, the political and social left, against the PRI, against the PRI.
And it was repression and torture, and there were no candidates or positions involved, because now the ends and means have been reversed. The goal is candidacies and positions, not the defense and protection of a national transformation project. That’s the end. Candidacies and positions are means, not ends. But within Morena, that has been a blind fight for candidacies and positions that put the very existence of the project at risk.
Remember what happened with the PRD? Group quotas and ambitions for prepositions gave the project then represented by the Party of the Democratic Revolution a hard time. Thus, a central objective of political formation is the defense of the project, the project of transformation in its moral and ethical aspects, in its historical aspects, as the memory of what we are, continuity as an essential element of identity, but also in the part of the government program.
López Obrador was very clear about that, and he has continued it, and I hope Claudia Sheinbaum will will continue to do so: the separation of political power and economic power. That is, no longer a state at the service of an oligarchic minority, but a state that is independent in defining public policies and government actions and extremely aggressive in social policy.
There is a very significant fact, compañeras and compañeros, that 13.4 million people in Mexico have been lifted out of poverty as a result of social policy. By the way, according to what my companero who spoke before me at the microphone said, the PAN voted against social reforms in the Chamber of Deputies that would have benefited the vast majority of the population.
So maintaining a popular social policy, the issue of austerity is another relevant factor in the case and it’s important to hold up a mirror to Morena’s trajectory near the point of austerity.
I’m talking about this, I’m finishing now, the issue of time has already been pointed out to me. So I’ll conclude this section on political training to strengthen a project to transform public life in the historical sphere, in the sphere of the government program, in the ethical and moral sphere, and in terms of utopia: what kind of society do we want in Mexico?
And many of us agree that is is a just, egalitarian, non-racist, non-classist, democratic and libertarian society. That’s the direction and focus of this political training program we’re developing at the request of the Mexico City State Executive Committee.
I didn’t say hello, but I bid everyone with farewell with love and affection and thank you for the invitation to participate in La Chilanguera. Thank you so much.
[43:42, Returns to the microphone to answer question]
Okay, so I remain on the subject of criticism. The sectional committee, which by the way, last Sunday 513 assemblies were held to form committees by electoral section in Mexico City and more than 5,000 nationally. But the sectional committee is theoretically useful in electoral situations, It’s a number. Mine is 3133. In aspects of people’s identity, that number doesn’t count. What counts in terms of identity is the neighbourhood where they live, the town in their case, or the housing unit. There is talk of forming grassroots committees, not by electoral section, but by colonia, barro, pueblo and housing unit at the territorial level. The section committee fits there, yes. The idea is to organize the committees by electoral section in a logic that isn’t just electoral – some say electoral – but also organizational, so that the committee is the space for the people at the base of the party to make policy for the party and for them to take ownership of the party’s policy, not just the leaders.
There’s a differentiation between the grassroots committee and the sectional committee: they’re not opposed, they’re complementary, but the grassroots committee is a broader organizational concept that’s sorely needed to respond to the lack of internal democracy in our party. And I’m not a supporter of triumphalism or self-congratulation. Criticism is critical and it’s the only way to recognize problems in order to solve them. Triumphalism is always rosy. We’re no in a position to be rosy. There are too many challenges in our movement and in Morena.
Look, I’ll give you a fact: in the municipalities, there are 2,047 municipalities in Mexico, excluding the customary ones in Oaxaca. There are 2,047. Almost 80% of those municipalities are in smaller municipalities – pardon the redundancy, smaller than 50,000 inhabitants. In municipalities with fewer than 50,000 inhabitants, Morena governs less than 30%. Morena, our party, that is, almost 70% or a little more, are governed either independently or by other parties in the smaller communities of our country, which are the vast majority. This is not the case in the states or in the large cities. Although I clarify, for example, in the 2024 elections, Morena governs in 24 states. In 10 of them, Morena lost the state capital. It lost the capital of Campeche, it lost the capital of Oaxaca, it lost Chilpancingo, it lost Morelia, it lost Colima, it lost Hermosillo, it lost Cuernavaca, it lost Zacatecas, and even up to Fresnillo, right? In Hidalco, Pachuca it won. It lost 10 of the 24.
The showcase of capitalist ideology is very powerful and captures consciousness. We have to defend a different identity.
There are many things to take care of because 2027 is coming and in Mexico City there are – things are going well, yes, in general terms, but we could lose some of the mayorships/alcadias, like even Xochimilco, Alvaro Obregon, of course. No, I don’t think so, but it could be. Perhaps Taistacalco could be lost. I think we’re going to recover Cuauhtemoc and Coyoacan. I think we’re going to recover, but there are risks in other parts, and I remember something López Obrador told Claudia Sheinbaum. In 2021, nine mayorships were lost due to a lack of territorial work, in other words, due to a lack of grassroots organization and Morena militancy in the city. That’s why we’re raising the issue of grassroots committees, because politics isn’t solved from the top down, it’s solved from the bottom up, at least with fundamental, transcendent solutions. The transcendence of a project isn’t cooked up from the top down. People have to intellectually appropriate it. That’s the revolution of consciences! A project to be intellectually appropriated and emotionally internalized. A transformation that encompasses history, that encompasses the government program, that encompasses utopia, and that encompasses, above all, ethics and morals. And within ethics and morals is austerity, and now it turns out, and we are seeing it and you are witnesses: well, what was Lopez Obrador like? For God’s sake, the blessed white suru and economy-class travel, and never helicopters. And now people are realizing, and in the municipalities they are realizing it and saying, “They are the same,” that’s why no to triumphalism, yes to criticism.
I hope I’ve answered the question. I think that’s where things are going. Thank you.
[58:29 Returns to microphone, to answer question]
I’ve known Pablo for many years. You can tell by his age, right? Brenda’s a kid. Very cool, by the way. The worst, the worst thing that could happen to Mexico that would make it so deadly is to return to the past. To 36 years of neoliberal capitalism. It’s the worst. Everything was a disaster, except for the interests of a very distinct minority. The 4T came to transform that reality with its contradictions. It came to transform that sinister past represented by 36 years of neoliberal dominance. That’s how it was, that’s how it was and there has been a transition to very valuable transformations. It’s a profound and important transformation project. That’s why there’s a risk of losing it and that’s why there’s a need for criticism. And there are serious problems.
For example, compañera, to continue surprising you, the Veracruz elections were this year. Do you know how many municipalities we lost? Morena governed 131 of the 211 in Veracruz. 131 of those, 49 were due to party changes, that is, people who won for other parties switched to Veracryz. I’m talking about Veracruz, a significantly important state due to its history and its size. Well, of the 131, we lost 60. Morena won 71 of the 131. Why? Why?
Because of terrible candidates and worse government management. And the people of those municipalities said, “They’re the same. PRI, PAN, PRD, Morena, they are the same. It’s the same rolled cat.”
Well, if we don’t act critically, we’ll continue to have inadequate profiles in the 2027 candidacies, and the defeats will multiply. Who puts these candidates forward? Regional leaders, local deputies, municipal bosses. I don’t why they are not defined, elected, or appointed by profiles, but rather by belonging to local power groups in this case, although this problem transcends the federal level as well.
So that is to say, we have to preserve an identity. We are different. We’ve repeated ourselves, haven’t we? Hundreds, thousands of times, maybe 715 times, we are not the same. This is demonstrated in practice. It’s very easy to say. The same is said by those in the PAN real estate cartel, who are different and are committed to the city. We all know they are corrupt. Brand, what brand?
Well, well, then we have to defend an identity that we won with great difficulty, because we didn’t even start with the PRD, we began with the fight for the transformation of Mexico decades ago. Pablo has known this for decades. We weren’t running for candidacies and positions, we were running for convictions, for principles, for ideals.
So, we have to preserve the transformation project called 4T, but do to that, we need to acknowledge our mistakes, we need to gather the expectations, hopes, and proposals of the people at the bottom. For example, in municipalities. Why don’t we hold open popular assemblies in small municipalities so that people can participate and tell us what their main needs and problems are? That’s the government’s program, and it also provides the right profile, because people know them and know they’re going to govern with honesty and with the 4T identity.
So well, what’s all this about? That political training is a good and privileged instrument for developing awareness, and if awareness is developed, commitment is generated. With what? With the project of the Fourth Transformation. Not with this or that leadership, with the transformation project.
Because many of the things that happen that you mentioned are incredibly embarrassing. Yes, yes, we go to our customs and ways of life, because that identity must also be reflected. If we’re going to be yearning for the best restaurants, five star hotels, first class on airplanes, our daughter at Disneyland, and our oldest son at a European university…
The showcase of capitalist ideology is very powerful and captures consciousness. We have to defend a different identity. And the government work that my compañeros have defended in the case of Mexico City, well, it’s a government work identified with the majority sectors, and forgive us the minority sectors, like the mafia gangsters of the Real Estate Cartel. Well, yes, but the challenge is great and the coin is in the air.
Statement against Eduardo Cervantes Díaz Lombardo by State Executive Committee of Morena in Mexico City , He was removed from his position on September 4th.
[01:10:10 Returns to microphone to answer question]
Yes, there was hauling. Where did we learn to do that? The old regime. It’s that Morena is an ideological and political hybrid: it’s mixed with a champurrado. Some people think, but I believe it’s true, that to win elections and to govern with the so-called bless governability, you need that hybrid. Without the hybrid, who knows how the party and its governability will fare electorally. But uniting seemingly different people in the same cause produces relatively favourable electoral and political results.
The problem with they hybrid is that many people don’t share in the transformation project and are insiders. How are they going to govern and legislate? Well, according to their conscience, their ideology, and their political culture, which is contrary to the 4T.
11 of the 24 governors came from the PRI. 11. Only two, Layda Sansores and the one from Sonora. They participated in the movement, even though they came from the PRI, the others joined the day before yesterday to join Morena and win, because their party is useless now, even though it has governed for 80 years.
How are they going to govern? Tamaulipas, Hidalgo, Nayarit, Baja California, Quintana Roo, Zacatecas. How are they going to govern with the 4T?
[Shakes finger]
No, they don’t even know it. Therefore, companeras, companeros, identity is key and political education is a privileged instrument for contributing to raising awareness and commitment to the transformation project, strengthening the identity that Andrés Manuel López Obrador created in his own way, but undoubtedly created.
Right wing businessman and opposition organizer Claudio X. González with Mario Delgado.
Because the worst thing would be to return to the past. Many people in Morena aren’t thinking about that: we could lose, and it’s not that far off, eh, the municipal elections reveal that. That’s why triumphalism is so dangerous, because it hides what’s really happening, and it’s essential that the party’s base take ownership of the party. It’s your game.
And the party should be – and it’s not – notice what I’m going to say – heresy: the party must be a critical conscience for its governments, for the governments that emanate from its party, from the Presidency ot the councillor of the smallest municipality and what’s going on?
That many members of the party, perhaps not so much in Mexico City, but in many states, will wait for municipal or state governments to give them work. In other words, a small, manipulated party, governors meet for breakfast to determine what the National Executive Committee will be like… A disgrace!
How are we going to support that?
Now, commitment to the project inspired by López Obrador within Morena is in the minority. It is a minority. In a hybrid that is here to say and not return to the past, what to do? In my opinion, change the balance of forces.
That the people committed the project have more weight than those who are against the project. One of those who dismantled, no way, sorry, one of those who dismantled the Morena organization is now Secretary of Public Education. [Mario Delgado]
It’s a shame, not to mention that department is being talked about and the austerity. Hey, look, there’s the hybrid. It is defensible by votes?
[Sighs]
Corruption is defensible because it brings votes? In my opinion, no. Under no circumstances. Corruption is condemnable in any situation. There it goes. Grassroots committees, not sectional committees. Sectional committees articulated into grassroots committees.
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