Has Mexico's opposition found its candidate?
A trio of opposition parties recently outlined a legally dubious process for picking a presidential candidate. But the long-elusive person to confront AMLO's chosen successor may have just emerged
Mexico’s opposition coalition outlined a convoluted process for picking its 2024 presidential candidate person “responsible for the construction of the Broad Front for Mexico” via opinion polls and a primary – resorting to a similarly dubious legal scheme as the ruling National Regeneration Movement (MORENA) party.
The process – seemingly superfluous as Mexican election law mandates the process for picking candidates begins in November – reinforced negative perceptions of the country’s often hapless and largely unpopular opposition, which has floundered electorally, been beset by fights between partiers, and wallowed in discredit since being trounced by now-President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (AMLO) in 2018.
But the elusive candidate to take on MORENA and the successor to AMLO possibly surfaced in the form of Sen. Xóchitl Gálvez, 60, whose humble origins, indigenous ancestry and story of self-made educational, professional and political success runs counter to AMLO’s accusations of opposition elitism.
Gálvez’s announcement went viral, attracting millions of views on Twitter – though her name had previously been bandied about as a possible presidential candidate by opposition figures prone to wish casting.
Mexico’s class politics
Gálvez’s presidential aspirations potentially complicate the succession plans of a president who portrays his opponents as racist and classist and repeatedly wrong foots them with references to history – such as his calls for Spain to apologize for the conquest. He christened his party MORENA, a word for dark skin in Spanish and a popular name for the national patroness, Our Lady of Guadalupe.
Yet Gálvez’s biography reflects more of the mythical “deep Mexico” which AMLO often references as a nod to the plights of the poor and disadvantaged – especially when compared to the probable MORENA nominees. As former Mexican ambassador Jorge Guajardo noted in a viral tweet referencing two MORENA favourites, former Mexico City mayor Claudia Sheinbaum and former foreign minister Marcelo Ebrard:
“It’s going to be interesting listening to President López Obrador try to convince us that someone with the last name Sheinbaum or Ebrard Casaubom is more representative of that Mexico from which he seeks to divide us than someone named Xóchitl.”
Her emergence has seemed to spook the president and his partisans – with AMLO using his morning press conferences to allege Gálvez was being used by the “oligarchy.” Cartoonist and close AMLO collaborator Rafael Barajas subsequently published a racially insensitive cartoon in La Jornada – a newspaper collecting millions of pesos in government money.
Another media figure sympathetic to AMLO, Jorge Zepeda Patterson, outlined the conundrum of a Gálvez candidacy, writing in the newspaper Milenio:
“The humble origin of the woman from Hidalgo, her father's Otomi ancestry, her indigenous name compared to the foreign surnames of her rivals (Sheinbaum or Ebrard), her brash and colloquial language, her image alien to the figure of the professional politician. All of them are exploitable for building a figure with popular appeal. …
“It would hinder the binary and comfortable discourse in which obradorismo has been installed with such success: building the image of a confrontation between a popular project and a project of the elites, of the snobs. … In the strictest sense, Xóchitl comes from humbler origins than her rivals; ironically, a profile more associated with the deep Mexico so close to AMLO.”
For her part, Claudia Sheinbaum, who was born to Jewish parents in Mexico City, took to posting her birth certificate on Twitter, saying that vicious rumours were swirling over her place of birth. She later posted a video on social media highlighting previous work in a Purépecha community as a student, “Where I learned wisdom, joy and community from the original peoples.”
Pledge to keep social programs
Gálvez started her video announcing her presidential aspirations with a pledge to keep all of AMLO’s social programs – which are delivered in the form of cash stipends. The announcement reflected a reticence in the opposition to dismantle schemes popular with swaths of working class voters – people in lower-income urban areas such as the eastern suburbs of Mexico City rather than the extremely poor who were enrolled in a successful conditional cash-transfer program (which AMLO disappeared.)
But AMLO had previously accused Gálvez of wanting to end his social programs. Gálvez, who says she convinced PAN lawmakers to go along with a motion to enshrine social programs in the constitution, demanded a spot in AMLO’s press conference to respond – something AMLO denied.
She later went to court and got an injunction. With the media present, Gálvez rode her bicycle to the National Palace and knocked on the door at 5:30 a.m. – but nobody opened. AMLO later accused her of having his enemies process her injunction.
The stunt won her airtime and media attention. But some analysts wonder if it’s enough.
Political analyst Fernando Dworak tweeted:
“An attractive narrative must have a credible messenger. And so far, they’re only celebrating in a limited circle.”
Gálvez’s political career includes a credible run for governor in her home state of Hidalgo, where she led a PAN-PRD coalition to a competitive finish in what was then a heavily PRI state – with a retrograde government. She later won a term as delegada in the Mexico City borough of Miguel Hidalgo, home to some of the poshest neighbourhoods in the capital. She currently sits in the Senate.
Dworak said of Gálvez’s track record:
“Credibility of the messenger does not come from a ‘disruptive’ image. It helps to position her. But it doesn’t replace substance. What’s needed? Holding a role for years, which provides that credibility. And, like or not, we have someone as president who did that for decades.”
SLAYING OF JESUITS ONE YEAR AGO: ‘BREAKS THE RULES OF THE GAME’
Bells rang at parishes across Mexico on June 20 to remember a pair of slain Jesuits – murdered in the rugged Sierra Tarahumara by a notorious crime boss while sheltering a person in their parish – along with the country’s countless victims of violence, including more than 100,000 missing persons.
The slayings of Joaquín Campos and Javier Mora reinforced Mexico’s ruinous reputation as the most murderous country for Catholic clergy – with nine priests murdered since AMLO came to office in December 2018. It also put the church on a collision course with AMLO as clergy called for a change in the president’s stated security policy of “hugs, not bullets” – and AMLO blasting back that bishops were acting as tools of the “oligarchy.”
As church observer Bernardo Barranco noted in the newspaper La Jornada:
“The murder of the two Jesuits catalyzed the Catholic hierarchy into being openly critical of the government. And embracing the causes of an uncertain opposition. One year after the murder of the Jesuits, things are no longer the same.”
In a sign of the distant relations between the president – who identifies as “Christian” and has been coy when asked of his religious affiliation – and the country’s bishops, Archbishop Carlos Garfías Merlo of Morelia, vice president of the Mexican bishops’ conference, told the magazine Proceso:
“I have had three meetings with President López Obrador, but he always says that he is going to send Beatriz (Gutiérrez, his wife). That’s the answer he gives the Catholic bishops when we ask him for something. He answers us: ‘I’m going to send my wife’, because he has had her as an interlocutor with the Catholic Church. But she doesn’t act as an operator. The only thing she says is ‘I’ll pass your greetings to the president.’”
Jesuits’ murders mark ‘before and after’
Father Luis Gerardo Moro Madrid, Jesuit provincial in Mexico, described the murders of Father Mora and Campos as “a before and after” – with the murders of clergy sending an unmistakable message of power and control in the corners of Mexico not controlled by the state. Father Moto told OSV News:
“(The gunman) burst into a church where there were two elderly priests and it’s in a church where they were murdered. A sacred space was profaned. That means that drug trafficking, that violence can reach anywhere. … That breaks the rules of the game.”
Fathers Mora and Campos, who had spent decades in the Sierra Tarahumara, filled a role played by priests in the seemingly lawless regions of Mexico: authority figures. As another Jesuit said during an event remembering his two slain colleagues:
“During the past 20 years, they were witnesses to how drug cartels expanded their control over the region. Covering the hills with (illicit crops). … According to some priests, Fathers Campos and Mora became moral authorities to balance the enormous influence of narcotics traffickers in Cerocahui and the Sierra Tarahumara.”
Little appears to have changed in the region covering the rugged Copper Canyon of Chihuahua state, which is populated by the indigenous Tarahumara.
A chapel in the municipality of Guachochi was shot up inside and out with 700 bullets June 6, while a pickup was torched in front and a decapitated body was left at the door. The priest responsible for the chapel said in a statement:
“By directly shooting the temple of a community, they have hurt the most sacred of a town that is deeply religious, the community meeting place has been desecrated, the place where a community lives its history, its depth of life. These events are among many others that have not been public, but have these communities in fear, so we cannot say that this is an isolated event.”
Jesuit Father Javier Ávila, known as “Padre Pato,” urged the president to change his security strategy at the slain Jesuits’ funeral, saying in his homily, “Hugs are not enough to stop bullets.” Father Ávila, a 48-year veteran of the Sierra Tarahumara, said of the attack on the parish:
“I think that the message was directly against the government, to tell them: ‘Look how far we will go, look at what we’re doing, and you do nothing to us. We enjoy impunity.’ That’s what worries me.”
MEXICAN MILITARY SEIZES 7 TONS OF FENTANYL IN FIVE YEARS – DESPITE PRESIDENT’S CLAIM THE COUNTRY DOESN’T PRODUCE IT
AMLO laughably insisted earlier this year that “fentanyl isn’t produced in Mexico.” He also attributed concern over fentanyl and talk of U.S. intervention into Mexico to stop fentanyl production to “politicking” as the U.S. election season heats up.
But the Mexican military on Tuesday revealed that the country’s security forces had destroyed 7.5 tons of fentanyl and decommissioned 1,740 methamphetamine labs.
The DEA in April indicted three sons of imprisoned former Sinaloa Cartel boss Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán and the cartel they lead, Los Chapitos, alleging they were trafficking enormous quantities of fentanyl. AMLO responded at the time with anger to DEA claims that it had infiltrated Los Chapitos, and accused the agency and the Pentagon of “spying.”
Los Chapitos subsequently published an open letter after the indictments, claiming to have never produced or trafficked fentanyl and whinging, “We’re victims of persecution and have been turned into scapegoats.”
But Vice News, citing Sinaloa newspaper Río Doce, reported fentanyl production briefly halted after the indictments as the Mexican military moved in. Río Doce reported a Los Chapitos member saying:
“We were warned to stop cooking fentanyl or we would have to face the consequences. That is why at this moment no one is producing fentanyl, everything is on standby.”
Interestingly, the Mexican revelations followed Republican presidential hopeful and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis outlining his border security agenda on Monday – which left open intervention in Mexico and possibly blocking ships carrying fentanyl from entering Mexican ports “if the Mexican government drags its feet.”
AMLO has previously trolled DeSantis, musing in May about fentanyl arriving in Florida rather than Mexico.
SEARCHERS SAY CARTELS WANT ‘PEACE PACT’
Families of the more than 100,000 Mexicans missing in the country’s drug war often form their search parties, which scour the countryside in search of their disappeared loved ones – often in the face of an absent or derelict state response. But some of the searchers (buscadoras) have themselves come under attack as cartels see threats in their searches – something that has prompted a few activists to call for a truce.
Cecilia Flores, president of collective known as “Colectivo Madres Buscadoras de Sonora,” was among those calling for a truce. On Tuesday, she posted a video on social media stating:
“We want to share that the cartels are now accepting this peace pact. We celebrate … something like this having an echo. … To the remaining cartels, think of joining. No likes to see themselves in danger. … Too much blood has already been spilled in our Mexico.”
The especially violent Northeast Cartel, which dominates Nuevo Laredo – terminus of in infamous stretch of highway stretching south to Monterrey on which dozens of motorists have been disappeared in recent years – supposedly responded to the call for a peace accord with a video message.
In a video of masked men with heavy weapons, a spokesman read a message saying talks had already started with the Gulf Cartel faction in Matamoros. The spokesman said to the president, who previously expressed approval for a truce:
“We know that it’s a problem that you inherited … and we’re willing to do our part since, above all, we are Mexicans and parents, too. We also want peace and security for them.”
AMLO responded to the video message when asked by a reporter at his morning press conference, where he called on criminal groups to take the initiative and for young people to avoid lives of crime. He said:
“Let them take the initiative and abandon illicit activities, let them stop causing damage. But we’re not contemplating an agreement. … What they have to realize is that it’s not the path they should be following, and that they shouldn’t be damaging people, they shouldn’t be using young people to commit crimes … because it’s a life of terrible suffering.”
IS A MEXICAN MUNICIPAL POLITICIAN A DRUG RUNNER OR AN UNWITTING MULE?
Denisse Ahumada, a PAN city councilor in the border community of Reynosa, was stopped at the Falfurrias checkpoint between McAllen and San Antonio on June 10 and found to be transporting 42 kilograms (93 pounds) of cocaine hidden in her vehicle. Security officials were tipped off to the drugs after an X-ray showed anomalies with the door panels and seats in her SUV, according to the Associated Press, leading to the discovery of 42 packages of cocaine.
Ahumada was charged with possession and intent to distribute drugs. But the U.S. District Court for southern Texas tossed the charges June 15, ruling prosecutors lacked probable cause.
Ahumada’s lawyer, Samuel Reyes, said that his client had been threatened by drug cartels, telling Border Report, “She had no idea what was in the vehicle. It was a threat: ‘Take the vehicle,’ you know, ‘or we will kill you and your kids’.”
But Brooks County, Texas, Sheriff Urbino “Benny” Martínez, issued a warrant for her arrest on charges of possession of a controlled substance of more than 400 grams, according to Border Report. Ahumada was arrested during the deportation process and held in the Hidalgo County, Texas, jail. Martínez told Border Report:
“I always believe that we shouldn’t let people walk after a crime. There needs to be consequences. It’s a bad signal when you just let people walk and there’s nothing in return.”
In another twist, Ahumada was arraigned on two federal counts of conspiracy to distribute a controlled substance.
IS MEXICO FUDGING ITS KIDNAPPING STATISTICS?
One of the regular segments in AMLO’s daily morning press conference is a security undersecretary reeling off crime statistics – which, according to the government, appear to be improving. On June 16, AMLO himself boasted of a 70% drop in kidnappings during his four and a half years in office. Some security analysts questions those figures, however – with Francisco Rivas of the anti-crime NGO, National Security Observatory, suggesting federal and state governments have reclassified certain crimes to suggest an improving security situation.
Rivas noted in a recent column for El Universal that the federal government claims a 79% drop in kidnappings. Official information shows a very respectable 43% drop in kidnappings, he said. But he added, “There is evidence to indicated that such numbers are being manipulation to show an artificial drop.”
He pointed to two factors fuelling suspicions of fudged statistics. 1) A 61% increasing in the category “other crimes violating personal freedom,” which he says, “coincidentally began to grow when kidnapping numbers started to drop.” 2) High profile kidnappings, which receive media attention, failed to appear in the official statistics.
Public officials have not provided the criteria for classifying what constitutes a kidnapping versus the other category. Two mass-kidnappings of migrants in San Luis Potosí and Sonora states show the contradictions. In San Luis Potosí, Rivas wrote:
“Last April, (state) authorities revealed they had rescued 128 kidnapping victims, 13 nationals and 105 migrants. However, the official statistics reported nine kidnapping victims and 122 victims of (other crimes violating personal freedom).”
In Sonora, “A similar case occurred in May. … The authorities freed 136 migrants and reported them as kidnapping victims.”
Kidnapping: a crime against the poor
In June 2020, AMLO insisted, “They don’t kidnap poor people, they kidnap those with money.” Rivas vehemently disagreed, writing, “Everyday it is more evident that kidnapping afflicts the powerless, widening the inequality gap and contributing to the crisis of disappeared persons and clandestine graves the length of the country.”
Security analysts say the wealthy have the resources to take precautions against kidnapping – such as hiring bodyguards – prompting gangs to target less affluent people in larger numbers (making it a volume business.)