Breathe
By Leticia Robles de la Rosa
Surrounded by controversies, which are woven around the real power she has in the Morena bench in the Senate, Andrea Chávez Treviño from Chihuahua has become a source of annoyance for several Morena senators to whom she shouts, orders and even scolds them if the things they do or say do not seem right to her.
Some Morena senators and practically all the workers of the parliamentary group call her "La Jefa" (The Boss), because she is not only responsible for the institutional communication of the parliamentary group inside and outside the parliamentary group, but she is also the de facto administrative coordinator, so everyone must count on her endorsement to obtain funds for the hiring of advisors.
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Even Andrea Chávez is the one who decides who goes to which commissions or to which specific tasks of the parliamentary group; also who goes to the tribune to take a position and even, on some occasions, who and how they should answer in a heated debate.
Since a month ago, among several Morena senators, the version began to spread that Andrea Chávez will become the next president of the Senate, because it is the best position to catapult her as a candidate for the government of Chihuahua, but the idea does not make the majority of the members of the bench happy.
Andrea Chávez's power is not only felt not only over the senators of her bench, but also over senators and collaborators of other benches.
Last year a couple of advisors of a PRI senator were waiting for him in the area known as Pasos Perdidos, which is like an annex of the plenary hall. He had ordered them to stay there while he went to vote. They were left alone at a table when Andrea Chavez entered, looked at them and approached the Parliamentary Security personnel to give them instructions. She withdrew and the guards approached the advisors to ask them to stand up and leave that space reserved only for senators.
When they argued that they were waiting for their boss, a PRI senator, the guards insisted that it was "La Jefa's order" and that they should leave, but they did not. When their boss arrived, they informed him of what had happened and the PRI senator reminded the staff of Parliamentary Security that all 128 senators are equal, none is above the other and all deserve the same treatment from the staff.
In informal conversations held with several Morena senators, since last year it was publicly known that Andrea Chávez is identified as "La Jefa" and in the daily life of the Senate it was observed that she enjoys attention that no other senator has, it has been possible to know the existence of moments of tension that they have experienced with her, because on occasions she assumes a role as if she were the one who leads not only the work of Morena, but of the entire Senate.
One of the anecdotes told by Morena senators is that on one occasion when Adán Augusto López Hernández, coordinator of Morena's senators, arrived a little late to a meeting of the Constitutional Points Commission, the president of the Commission, Óscar Cantón Zetina, continued the session and then welcomed the coordinator.
But at the conclusion of the Commission's session, Andrea Chávez spoke to Cantón Zetina to complain that he had not interrupted the session to receive the coordinator.
A couple of weeks later, in the approval of the constitutional reform regarding social programs, Canton Zetina violated the Senate's internal rules to give Andrea Chavez a greater role.
The rule of the Senate establishes that the Committee of Constitutional Points is always the Committee that coordinates the rest of the united committees; that is to say, it is the one that issues the opinion and presides over the approval session in committees. However, on October 28, 2024, the presiding Committee was the Welfare Committee, headed by Andrea Chávez, while the Points Committee was in second place.
In addition, the events held by Senator Chávez have a greater diffusion than those held by the rest of the Morenista Senators. The mailing logs of the Coordination of Social Communication of the Senate show this preference for disseminating more the events where the Senator for Chihuahua is present.
The internal power of "La Jefa", however, does not seem to be enough to obtain the support of her group to preside the Senate as of September 1 of this year, although in reality the decision will not be entirely of the parliamentary group, but of the President of the Republic, since Adán Augusto López does not have the margin of freedom of decision that Ricardo Monreal had when he was coordinator of senators.
Already now, some Morenistas maintain a position that the woman who should preside the Senate is between two profiles: Imelda Castro and Ana Lilia Rivera, because they do not like Chávez's invasive style.
Although in order to write this text I sought an interview with Andrea Chávez herself, she cancelled the appointment that had already been agreed upon and so far did not have time to attend the formal request.
The opinions expressed are the responsibility of the authors and are absolutely independent of the position and editorial line of the company. Opinion 51.
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