Mexico’s ruling Morena party elected Interior Secretary Luisa Maria Alcalde as its new leader on Sunday and awarded a high-ranking position to the son of outgoing Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador.
Alcalde, a 37-year-old lawyer from a storied Mexican political family, will be tasked with consolidating the disparate wings of the Morena movement without its founder, Lopez Obrador, who has been a towering figure in Mexican politics in recent years.
Since Lopez Obrador founded Morena in 2011, the party has surged in popularity, becoming an electoral juggernaut and drawing comparisons with the Institutional Revolutionary Party that ruled Mexico for seven decades. Morena now governs 23 of the country’s 32 states and holds large majorities in both chambers of Congress.
A staunch Lopez Obrador ally, Alcalde was a congresswoman from 2013 to 2015, served as labor secretary from 2018 to June 2023, and has since held the interior portfolio, one of the country’s most important political posts.
“I’m not going to fail you,” Alcalde told Morena supporters after being elected.
Mexico’s President-elect Claudia Sheinbaum said she was convinced “Morena’s new management will do a great job.”
“They will know how to guide our movement with principles and unity. Many congratulations. We continue making history,” Sheinbaum added.
Lopez Obrador’s son, Andres Manuel Lopez Beltran, was elected as the secretary of organization.