opposition advances to choose its candidate and Xóchitl Gálvez consolidates as a favorite

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MEXICO CITY (AP) — The main opposition coalition in Mexico completed the first phase of the process to define its presidential candidate on Wednesday, and Senator Xóchitl Gálvez continues to appear as the favorite to represent the bloc in the 2024 elections.

In the midst of a pre-campaign clouded by the criticism of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador towards Gálvez, which has helped catapult her candidacy, the Broad Front for Mexico announced that only four of the 12 pre-candidates who participated in the process managed to gather more than 150,000 signatures in 17 states to move to a second stage.

The pre-candidates who met the required signatures were senators Santiago Creel, Beatriz Paredes, and Gálvez, and the politician Enrique de la Madrid, son of former president Miguel de la Madrid, informed the spokesman for the technical committee of the right-wing bloc, Arturo Sánchez.

The announcement was made amid protests by the pre-candidates Silvano Aureoles and Miguel Ángel Mancera, both from the opposition Democratic Revolution Party, who questioned the selection process and warned that the decision agreed on Wednesday put the direction and solidity of the coalition at risk with views of the elections.

Aureoles was governor of the troubled state of Michoacán and Mancera, governor of Mexico City.

The right-wing Frente Amplio por México is made up of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) and National Action Party (PAN) and the ex-leftist Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD), which has marginal weight in the alliance.

Gálvez, who belongs to the PAN without being a militant, was confident in the process and told the press that after more than a month of pre-campaign he managed to collect some 555,000 signatures, which according to press reports considerably exceeded those obtained by the rest of the pre-candidates. .

When asked if she will be the candidate of the opposition bloc, the 60-year-old senator and engineer replied that we will have to wait for the next stages that will take place in the next three weeks.

During the second phase of the process, which begins on Thursday, the four pre-candidates will participate in forums and surveys. The three candidates who obtain the greatest popular support will go on to a third phase that will include five regional forums, new polls, and a citizen consultation that will be held on September 3 to select the presidential candidate of the Broad Front for Mexico.

The ruling Morena party also began the process to choose its presidential candidate in July, which will be defined on September 6 through polls.

Participating in the process are former Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard, former Secretary of the Interior Adán Augusto López, congressmen Ricardo Monreal, Manuel Velasco, and Gerardo Fernández Noroña, and the former mayor of Mexico City, Claudia Sheinbaum, who appears as the favorite to succeed. López Obrador, according to internal surveys of that movement.

If Gálvez wins the candidacy of the right and Sheinbaum the one of the left, two women will compete for the presidency for the first time in Mexico, the second largest economy in Latin America after Brazil.

In recent weeks, López Obrador has directed his criticisms against Gálvez, whom he has accused of being the candidate of the “conservatives” and the “oligarchy” and of benefiting his technology companies with million-dollar contracts from his position as an official, and disseminated in her morning conference the fiscal balances of her companies, which led the opposition to take legal action against the president and denounce him before the National Electoral Institute.

Gálvez challenged Lopez Obrador to show that her companies have received government contracts for 1.4 billion pesos (about 82 million dollars) over the years

But not only the center-leftist López Obrador has censured Xóchitl Gálvez. The former leader of the right-wing opposition group, the National Anti-AMLO Front (FRENA), the irate and strident Gilberto Lozano, has asserted in various YouTube programs that the senator “is corrupt” and an “influence peddler.” FRENA lacks political influence. important to be a true rival against the Broad Front for Mexico and much less against Morena.

“I have each one of the contracts” related to Gálvez, he told the SinEmbargo Al Aire program two weeks ago, referring to the fact that the law prevents an official from doing business with the government even indirectly. Lozano also criticized the other presidential candidates of the Broad Front for Mexico and mocked that Gálvez and Creel say they are from the left.”Right now they all came out left-handed,” Lozano said, referring to the fact that Gálvez has described himself as a “Trotskyist” and Creel as a “leftist.”

Former right-wing president Vicente Fox, who had Gálvez as an official in his government, asked him that if he wins the presidency, he cancel all the social programs that López Obrador launched in Mexico, such as financial aid for the elderly, single mothers and students. Gálvez’s position is not clear on the matter.

Despite the fact that the electoral body asked López Obrador not to mention the opposition senator anymore, the ruler ignored the decision and continued to attack her in his morning conference.

At the beginning of the month, the Electoral Tribunal of the Federal Judiciary ruled that the president’s comments against Gálvez could constitute gender political violence. López Obrador reacted against the magistrates of the electoral court, accusing them of lying and “acting falsely.”

In his morning conference on Wednesday, the ruler went further and sparked a controversy by stating that “(in) everything they say to me, is there no gender violation? Or is gender just feminine.”

His wife, Beatriz Gutiérrez, joined the approach, who questioned the INE’s position and asked on her Facebook account “Is gender political violence only sanctioned from men to women?”

López Obrador has only criticized Gálvez, not his family, but conversely the senator has repeatedly described one of the president’s sons as “talegón,” a semi-offensive word that in Mexico means someone lazy and good-for-nothing.