Xóchitl Gálvez is not quitting in her aspirations to become the first woman to win the presidency in our country, and she has hit back at Mexico’s president Andrés Manuel López Obrador. Earlier this month, Gálvez filed a complaint with the electoral authority saying Obrador was breaching impartiality rules.
“What the president wants is for me to quit,” she said after AMLO released all the information there is to know about her finances. “But he won’t succeed.”
The authority this week ordered Lopez Obrador to remain neutral and abstain from election comments. He said he would “pause” such remarks, but he and aides continue making allusions to her.
Some Lopez Obrador loyalists see in his treatment of Galvez echoes of how he suffered as mayor of the capital at the hands of his adversary, then-president Vicente Fox of the PAN, in a case known in Spanish as the “Desafuero.”
Under Fox’s government, Congress in 2005 stripped Lopez Obrador of immunity from prosecution over a minor land dispute. The case was later dropped but sparked major protests and bolstered Lopez Obrador’s popularity ahead of the 2006 presidential election.
Lopez Obrador narrowly lost and was defeated again in 2012 before finally winning in 2018 by a landslide.
“The mistake Fox made with Andres Manuel, the president is now making with Xochitl,” said a senior Mexican official who declined to be named, noting that Galvez’s rise could boost the opposition’s presence in Congress in 2024.
It also risked making Galvez better known than Sheinbaum, who is many analysts’ leading contender, the official added.
Lopez Obrador has acknowledged some allies want him to keep quiet rather than “build up” Galvez. But, he said, the public must know she had “gone from selling jelly to being a millionaire.”
Lorena Villavicencio, a MORENA politician backing Sheinbaum, said Galvez’s financial affairs should have remained private and subject to the proper authorities. She urged her party to avoid resorting to tactics used against Lopez Obrador in the past.
“Negative campaigning is counterproductive,” she said. “And tends to put whoever’s on the receiving end in the spotlight.”
Source: Excelsior
