A veteran leftist politician has accused President López Obrador of colluding with narcos and wanting to entrust that collusion to his successor.

Porfirio Muñoz Ledo, an 88-year-old former deputy, senator, federal cabinet minister and ambassador to the European Union, asserted Thursday that López Obrador possesses “a package of power and that package … is an alliance between narcos and the government.”

“… He thinks that he can pass on his association with criminals to the next government and that [the collusion] gives him greater power,” he told a meeting of the Permanent Conference of Political Parties of Latin America and the Caribbean, a multilateral organization headed as of Thursday by Institutional Revolutionary Party national president Alejandro Moreno.

However, the president’s “conspiracy or alliance with narcos is not inheritable,” claimed Muñoz, who represented the ruling Morena party in the lower house of Congress until last year.

AMLO can’t pass on his collusion when he leaves office in 2024 because criminal organizations will negotiate and make new deals with whoever succeeds him, he said.

“They will no longer need the president. That’s the issue, a moral issue, an issue of political analysis,” Muñoz said.

“… And there will be a danger that [organized crime] will demand more from the new [political] actors,” he added.

The octogenarian asserted that López Obrador has drawn authority and resources not just from the federal government but also from drug cartels. He also claimed that an “authoritarian reversion” began in Mexico two or three years ago and that organized crime is “the new king of the jungle.”

AMLO on Friday claimed that Muñoz’s remarks were designed to discredit him – and the Morena political brand – just before voters go to the polls in six states to elect new governors.

“All this is really very … vulgar. I regret it because Mr. Muñoz Ledo knows me very well and he [still] dares to contend that the government has links with narcos. It’s an opinion without basis, it’s reckless,” he said.

With reports from El Universal, Animal Político, El Economista and El Financiero