Guanajuato, like many other states, is starting to experience a kind of “2018 effect” more intensely: the political trampoline, where figures, operators, leaderships, and entire structures begin to calculate from which diving board it is best to jump towards the next election. And it makes sense: when a political force has dominated a state for decades and suddenly there is a real possibility of contesting the crown, the signing fair begins. The problem is that we continue to analyze political hopping as if it were solely a matter of betrayal, principles, ideology, or colors. No. Politics also operates with incentives, survival, opportunities, rents, and, above all, political capital. Believing that everyone joins a party because one Sunday they read its statutes, were moved by its doctrinal principles, and decided to dedicate their life to the cause is nice for an anniversary ceremony with the toxic one, but as an explanation of political behavior, it is quite naive, to say the least. People also seek influence, growth, positions, decision-making power, access to power, or opportunities to impact public life. Are there convictions? Of course there are; it’s just that convictions also eat and dream.
Let’s think of a profile that has been within a party for years. They know the territory, can operate a campaign, have relationships, understand certain structures, perhaps mobilize people, and have even held some public responsibility, but within their own organization, they are still sitting in the third row watching the same old faces pass by. Or worse: they are one of those members that no one remembers until a signature, a flag, a noisemaker, filling twenty chairs for a photo, getting polling station representatives, sticking medallions at an intersection, or walking through a neighborhood under the sun is needed. For the leadership, they are extremely important, of course… approximately three months every three years. Suddenly another party arrives and tells them: “here you are useful.” They throw a party, announce their incorporation, take photographs, present them as a strategic acquisition, negotiate commitments, and let them know that if things go well, there will be a seat at the table of the big shots. Let’s be intellectually honest: does it really cost that much to understand why they switch? Perhaps they didn’t abandon an extraordinary political career; perhaps they simply left a place where they were props to enter another where, due to the electoral situation, their asset has just increased in value. That is not necessarily betrayal. Sometimes it is pure political arbitration: where one values you at zero, another discovers you are worth ten.
That’s why the real problem doesn’t necessarily start with the one who jumps, but when their arrival disrupts the internal market of the party that receives them. Because a politician with capital never arrives alone. They come with a political family, operators, territorial leaderships, leaders with presence in neighborhoods, associations, business relationships, electoral knowledge, possible financiers, mobilizers, votes, and a nice list of commitments that, curiously, does not appear in the welcome photo. And all of that has a price. When a party enters competitive mode, its natural incentive is to accumulate as many assets as possible, even if doctrinally they have the consistency of gelatin. Moreover, signing an adversary has double benefits: not only do you add what they bring; you also take it away from the opponent. In electoral terms, it’s a great operation. Internally, party gentrification begins: new neighbors with greater political purchasing power arrive for the party’s elite, and suddenly, the long-time residents discover they can no longer afford to live in their own party.
Morena understood this logic very well during its expansion, and other parties replicate it. Its growth did not consist solely of increasing an original membership but in building a much broader political coalition, incorporating figures, operators, leaderships, and structures from practically the entire party system, whether good, bad, or horrific. Characters who had been in opposing trenches for years and even had ties to organized crime ended up sharing a project because, electorally, the operation made sense. From the doctrine, there could be obvious contradictions; from the accumulation of power, the math was impeccable: add, take away assets from the adversary, and keep adding until it becomes increasingly difficult to compete against you. Something akin to market concentration, except that instead of buying competitors, you buy political capital. If they bring structure, they fit in the photo; the consistency and background are reviewed later, if there’s time left.
And here comes the part that almost never appears in the press release: that external political capital never comes for free. When you incorporate a leadership, you also import their commitments. The newcomer rarely enters saying: “thank you for having me, I want absolutely nothing, and neither does my people, but I feel comfortable in the meeting.” It would be lovely, almost an angelic appearance. The norm is that they arrive accompanied by operators who bet on them, collaborators who left spaces, figures who expect continuity, and allies who want to cash in on the risk of having changed jerseys. Then the real integration begins: candidacies, council positions, directorships, secretariats, advisories, administrative positions, representation spaces, and above all, the beautiful present and future promises. In political science, we can call it the distribution of selective incentives; in political maneuvering, it’s called “let’s see, where do we place those who came over?” And those seats are not magically produced. They come from the same dining room where the party’s own membership had been formed for years by the color that the citizens chose in this so-called partyocracy (let’s not pretend it’s a democracy).
