The federal government is passing the hat among senior civil servants and officials to collect funds to help cover the costs of responding to the coronavirus crisis.
As of Thursday, high-ranking officials are being encouraged to donate part of their salary back to the government in line with President López Obrador’s austerity push.
A Finance Ministry letter seen by the newspaper El Financiero says the “voluntary contributions” to public coffers that officials are being encouraged to make would comply with a presidential decree on austerity issued on April 23.
“In a voluntary way, the salaries of high-ranking public officials will be reduced by up to 25%,” the decree said, adding that larger contributions should be made by those who earn more.
López Obrador, who earns a net monthly salary of 111,990 pesos (just under US $5,000), should donate one-quarter of his wage to the government, according to the decree.
Therefore, to set the example he wants other officials to follow, the president will have to forsake some 28,000 pesos for the good of the country, whose economy is in dire straits as a result of the pandemic and the associated restrictions.
Cabinet ministers should donate 23% of their salaries, according to the decree, while deputy ministers and other officials of a similar rank should relinquish 21% of their take-home pay.
Lower ranking officials down to the level of deputy department director are being encouraged to return between 5% and 19% of their salary to the government depending on the position they hold.
If officials decide that they are able to give part of their wages back to their employer, they can make an online transfer or alternatively make the payment at a bank with cash in hand.
López Obrador has made cutting costs a central aim of his administration, and frequently quips that “there can’t be a rich government with poor people.”
In April the president decreed that senior public servants would not be paid their annual, year-end bonus, but the government had to backtrack and opt for a voluntary contribution after experts in constitutional and labor law pronounced that the decree was illegal.
Among other cost-saving measures the president has adopted are flying commercial rather than in the presidential jet – which he put up for sale, living in the National Palace rather than the official presidential residence and largely foregoing personal security.
López Obrador has also refused to increase public debt to support the economy amid the coronavirus crisis, a stance that has put him at loggerheads with many business leaders.
Deputy Miriam Cano, who proposed the bill, said threats were made against her.
Lawmakers in Baja California have rejected a bill to change the state’s constitution and allow the recognition of same-sex marriage.
The initiative, presented by the Morena party, failed to get the two-thirds majority required to change the wording of the constitution, which currently defines marriage as between a man and a woman.
Of the 25 votes cast, only 15 were in favor, with three against and seven abstentions.
Those who abstained said they needed to explore the issue in more depth.
“This is very sad. This is a sad day for our state’s history,” Deputy Montserrat Caballero said after the vote.
“People pay us to take a vote. To vote yes or no. Not to worry about our seats and abstain from voting,” she said.
The bill caused a confrontation between the state’s LGBT+ advocacy community and pro-life groups who waited outside Congress in Mexicali to see if the 2010 constitutional amendment which defined marriage exclusively as the union between a man and a woman would be overturned.
The proposed law will be returned to the governance commission at a later date for further discussion. Last year a similar proposal was tabled after outrage from conservative groups.
Same-sex marriage has been legal in Mexico since 2015, after a Supreme Court ruling that enabled couples to get an injunction in federal court against state laws prohibiting their union.
However, the process can be lengthy and first requires couples to file for a marriage license and be rejected before suing in federal court.
LGBT+ advocates say the process is unfair because it forces same-sex couples to spend significantly more time and money navigating the legal process to get married than heterosexual couples face.
Several states in Mexico have already legalized same-sex marriage.
Opponents such as conservative religious organizations like the National Front for the Family gathered some 27,000 signatures opposing the failed bill. They claimed it would damage families, which are formed with the goal of procreation.
“As parents, we appreciate that the legislators have listened to us since the legalization of marriage equality was just going to be the beginning of actions that seem unfair to us for our children, like transgender bathrooms in schools,” said Marcela Vaquera, a spokeswoman for the National Front for the Family.
The bill was introduced by Ensenada legislator Miriam Cano, who expressed disappointment that the measure failed.
Cano said she put the bill forward at the request of the community and upon recommendations by the National Human Rights Commission. Cano reports her support for same-sex rights has led to threats of violence and death. “They wish my children would die and be crushed, burned and dismembered,” she said.
Same-sex marriage advocates vowed that the fight for equality would continue.
The comet Neowise over Isla Mujeres on Tuesday. roberto fernández
A Mexican photographer took a photograph of the comet Neowise that has been shared on social media by the United States National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).
Roberto Fernández rose before dawn for five days in a row trying to capture the comet’s image, which he finally did on Tuesday, photographing the celestial body over Isla Mujeres in Quintana Roo.
“Happy, happy, happy today,” Fernández wrote on his Twitter account after learning that NASA had shared his photo. “The image was captured in Cancún and you can see the southern tip of Isla Mujeres. If you look carefully, you can see the temple of the goddess Ixchel.”
The comet is visible to the naked eye in dark skies with little or no light pollution, but binoculars are needed to see the tail, NASA said.
Comet Neowise passed through Mercury’s orbit just over a week ago. Its proximity to the sun caused dust and gas to burn on its surface and created a long tail of debris.
NASA’s Neowise Infrared Space Telescope discovered the comet in March, but it will be visible throughout the Northern Hemisphere until mid-August when it will again head toward the outer zone of the solar system.
It will be about 7,000 years before the comet returns, “so I wouldn’t suggest waiting until the next time it happens,” said Joe Masiero, deputy principal investigator at NASA’s jet propulsion laboratory in Pasadena, California.
The comet will be closest to Earth on July 23 when it will be 103 million kilometers away. It is visible in the northeastern part of the sky in predawn hours, and in the northwest just under Ursa Major about 45 minutes after sunset.
“What you want to do is go out right around the time that the first stars start to show up. You’re not going to be able to see it before that,” Masiero said. “It’s probably about as bright as some of the stars in the Big Dipper.”
Neowise was discovered on March 27, 2020, and was named for the telescope through which it was first viewed. It is the brightest comet visible from earth since Hale-Bopp in 1997.
The comet has been photographed in the United States, France, Croatia, Switzerland, Canada and twice in Mexico, in Zacatecas and Cancún.
New coronavirus outbreaks have occurred in Guerrero and Oaxaca in recent weeks, a federal health official said Thursday as Mexico passed Chile to rank seventh in the world for total cases.
Speaking at the Health Ministry’s nightly coronavirus press briefing, Director of Epidemiology José Luis Alomía said that case numbers stabilized in Guerrero between epidemiological weeks 22 and 25, a period that ran from May 24 to June 20.
However, the numbers began to increase again in weeks 26 and 27, or between June 21 and July 4, he said, explaining that there was a 7% spike in new infections.
Alomía said that Covid-19 deaths in Guerrero began trending downwards in epidemiological week 23 and, despite the uptick in cases, declined by 55% in weeks 26 and 27.
(Mexico is currently in week 29 but data for the two most recent weeks is not considered useful for epidemiological purposes because it may be incomplete and subject to change.)
Guerrero municipalities with the most Covid-19 cases are indicated in dark red. White means no cases have been reported.
“However, we see that they increase again from week 25 to 26. … This new peak exceeds the previous peak, … which represents a new outbreak for the municipality of Acapulco,” he said.
The popular tourist destination has recorded 4,739 confirmed cases since the beginning of the pandemic, a figure which represents 56% of the 8,432 cases reported in the state.
Alomía said that Oaxaca has seen a similar phenomenon: case numbers trended downwards between weeks 24 and 26 before increasing again from the beginning of week 27.
Case numbers recently reached a higher level in Oaxaca than the previous peak, he said. Covid-19 deaths in the southern state are estimated to have increased by 11% in weeks 26 and 27, Alomía added.
In the municipality of Oaxaca, home to the state capital, case numbers peaked in week 23 before declining significantly in the following two weeks. However, the downward trend didn’t continue in weeks 26 and 27 and there is a risk that cases will spike again in Oaxaca city, Alomía said.
Municipalities in Oaxaca with the most Covid-19 cases are indicated in dark red. White means no cases have been reported.
The state of Oaxaca has recorded 8,151 confirmed coronavirus cases since the beginning of the pandemic and 792 deaths.
Alomía also reported Thursday that Mexico’s accumulated case tally had increased to 321,041 with 6,406 new cases registered. Just under 9% of those cases – 28,786 – are currently active.
According to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University, Mexico now ranks seventh for total cases, passing Chile’s tally on Thursday.
With more than 3.5 million confirmed cases, the United States ranks first followed by Brazil, India, Russia, Peru and South Africa.
Alomía also reported that Mexico’s Covid-19 death toll had increased to 37,574 with 668 additional fatalities. Mexico still ranks fourth for total deaths behind the United States, Brazil and the United Kingdom.
Mexico City’s official death toll passed 8,000 on Thursday and now stands at 8,008. México state has the second highest Covid-19 death toll, with more than 5,500 fatalities, while more than 2,000 people have succumbed to the infectious disease in both Baja California and Veracruz.
Covid-19 deaths as of Thursday. milenio
Alomía said that 46% of general care hospital beds set aside for coronavirus patients are currently occupied while 28% of those with ventilators are in use.
Deputy Health Minister Hugo López-Gatell said that a new “stoplight” map, used to indicate the risk of coronavirus infection in Mexico’s 32 states, will be presented Friday after state government data inconsistencies prevented an update last week.
López-Gatell said Thursday that the data inconsistencies detected last week only applied to “very few” states and asserted that there was no malicious intent on the part of state governments.
“It was a technical issue, it wasn’t due to deceit or negligence, we didn’t identify any malice. … The state governments have shown their willingness for dialogue and they exercise responsibility to protect the health of their populations.”
In a coronavirus hotspot in the Mexico City borough of Tlalpan, hunger wins out over health: there is greater demand for tacos than for Covid-19 tests and information.
According to a report by the newspaper El Universal, taco stands in the pueblo (town) of San Miguel Topilejo, one of 34 locations in the capital designated as coronavirus hotspots, were busier on Wednesday than a health kiosk that has been set up by the Mexico City government to provide medical advice, carry out health checks and perform Covid-19 tests.
A city official working at the kiosk admitted that the number of people eating carnitas, or porktacos, exceeds the number of citizens interested in accessing information that could save their lives and those of their family members and neighbors.
The kiosk only performed about 30 Covid-19 tests on Wednesday, El Universal said.
A taquero, or taco cook, at a busy barbacoa, or mutton, taco stand in Topilejo said he wasn’t afraid of contracting the coronavirus, declaring “we’re all going to die of something.”
What’ll it be? A taco or a test?
His actions backed up his words: Ramiro wasn’t wearing a face mask while serving his numerous customers, who made little effort to keep a safe distance from each other.
“People have to work and do their things,” he said.
The kiosk official told El Universal that she had observed that many people in Tlalpan behave as if the coronavirus pandemic didn’t exist. Some people have little confidence in Covid-19 tests and believe that they can stave off or treat the disease using traditional means, she added.
“The people here still have their customs; in the conversations we’ve had, … they tell us they look after themselves with teas and herbs from the countryside,” the health official said.
She added that people in Tlalpan as well as Xochimilco and Milpa Alta – three boroughs where many longstanding traditions remain strong – have a different “perception” of the coronavirus.
“They’re very reluctant [to follow the coronavirus mitigation advice], which increases infections and deaths. We’ve attempted to sanitize [public spaces] but they don’t allow it, they don’t maintain a healthy distance in stores and street stalls,” the official said.
Educating people about the risks of Covid-19 is a “titanic job,” she said.
In the borough of Coyoacán, where four hotspot neighborhoods are located, there are also many people who behave as if the coronavirus didn’t exist, El Universal said.
In the area around La Bola market, located in the hotspot neighborhood of Ajusco, many people were not wearing face masks or making an effort to distance themselves from others on Tuesday.
A woman seeking information in another health kiosk told El Universal that young people and old people alike refuse to wear face masks in Ajusco despite the high number of coronavirus cases there.
“[People] spit in the street, they cough [without covering their mouths], that’s why we’re in this situation. If someone says something to them, they get offended,” she said.
Mexico City has been Mexico’s coronavirus epicenter since the beginning of the pandemic, recording more confirmed cases and deaths than any of the nation’s 31 states and continuously leading the country for active cases.
The capital is currently under “orange light” high risk restrictions according to the federal government’s “stoplight” map, used to indicate the risk of coronavirus infections, but the 34 hotspot areas will face stricter rules at least until the end of July.
Site of the controversial bridge in Xochimilco. TERESA DE MIGUEL
A six-lane bridge slated for construction over wetlands in the southern Mexico City borough of Xochimilco is a vital part of an improved road link between the east and south of the capital, says Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum.
But critics of the 680-million-peso (US $30.3-million) project, which began in February, say that it threatens Mexico City’s last – and vitally-important – wetlands, remnants of a vast lake system that once extended across the land now covered by the capital’s urban sprawl.
Now a legal battle is underway to determine whether the government can continue with the bridge project or whether it will be forced to throw its plan into the dustbin of history.
Some context: when Sheinbaum triumphed at Mexico City’s mayoral election in 2018, environmentalists celebrated her victory. They believed that the scientist and former member of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change would be a champion for the environmental changes the congested and contaminated capital desperately needed.
But three months after she took office in December 2018, the mayor announced a plan that collided head on with that idea: construction of a six-lane bridge that would allegedly destroy at least three hectares of the Xochimilco wetlands.
Its construction and the resultant destruction of the wetlands would be devastating for Mexico City, a National Autonomous University (UNAM) biologist told the newspaper El País.
“Wetlands are fundamental for urban resilience in any city, even more so in a city of this size. They reduce flooding when heavy rains come [and] they’re a temperature buffer,” said Luis Zambrano.
“There is a study that says that if [the] Xochimilco [wetlands] didn’t exist, the average temperature in Mexico City would increase by two degrees [celsius].”
The planned bridge, reported El País, was also proposed by the two previous Mexico City governments but they were unable to execute it because the wetlands are a UNESCO world heritage site, considered internationally important under the Ramsar convention and were designated a Natural Protected Area, or ANP, by the Mexican government almost 30 years ago.
Infrastructure projects are expressly prohibited in ANPs and trees within them are protected. However, the felling of more than 650 trees will be required to build the bridge, El País said.
Zambrano, a fierce defender of the axolotl, a species of salamander endemic to the Xochimilco canals, said that the different national and international “mechanisms should help us to protect” the wetlands but charged that the government doesn’t care about them.
Bridge protesters on the Periférico. TERESA DE MIGUEL
Sheinbaum has claimed that the area where the bridge will be built is not part of an ANP. However that assertion is not backed up by Environment Ministry records.
If the Mexico City government is given a green light, legally speaking, to continue with the bridge project, “everything is at risk” because they will be able to build infrastructure projects wherever they want, Zambrano said.
Authorities in the capital awarded a contract for the bridge’s construction in August 2019 and a month later changed local regulations to allow environmental impact evaluations for all public infrastructure projects to be completed more quickly.
Gaining environmental approval for a large-scale infrastructure project previously involved an exhaustive process that could take months. However, with the modified regulations, authorization for the bridge was granted in just two weeks, El País said.
Mexico City authorities have justified the bridge’s approval on the basis that the area where it will be built was already degraded in the early 1990s when the Periférico ring road was widened and consequently passed over part of the wetlands.
At the time, authorities decided to build a large median strip between the lanes that allowed the wetlands’ water to continue to flow and allowed native animals to move from one side of the wetlands to the other.
However, the bridge project would involve the destruction of the median strip, which environmentalists say would have an adverse impact on the environment and its animals, among which are axolotls, an endemic species of crayfish, the Montezuma frog and more than 400 species of birds.
Academics, activists and environmentalists are also concerned that an almost two-kilometer-long elevated bridge would effectively split the borough of Xochimilco in two.
“It’s a project that will cut off” one half of Xochimilco from the other,” Abril Reza, an activist, told El País during a protest against the bridge. “It will divide [the borough] so we’ve come to stop it,” she said.
“Yes to the wetlands, no to ecocide,” the mostly young demonstrators chanted at a protest in March.
Two months later, residents of several pueblos originarios, or original towns, in Xochimilco, filed an injunction request against the bridge, arguing that its construction would damage an area that is crucial to counteracting the effects of climate change.
The bridge would have an adverse impact on the lives of present and future generations, they said.
A federal judge has agreed to consider the injunction request, El País said, but no decision has yet been made.
Following the publication of the newspaper’s report on Wednesday, Mexico City Environment Minister Marina Robles told a press conference that the bridge project complied with all environmental rules.
She said that most of the wetlands in the area will be maintained and even improved by the project.
Infrastructure Minister Jesús Antonio Esteva Medina explained that most of the wetlands won’t be affected by the bridge because it will be mostly built above existing road.
“We’re very respectful of the environment,” he said, adding that 387 trees will be felled in order to build the bridge but about 1,000 new ones have already been planted in the area.
Pulque vendor Patricio González drinks a glass at lunch and another at dinner. 'It cleans the lungs.'
Pedro García, more commonly known as Don Pedro, dips a plastic pitcher into a large blue barrel filled to the brim with pulque, a milky, mildly alcoholic drink made from the juice of the maguey plant.
He’s been making pulque in San Pablo Oztotepec, a pueblo in the southernmost part of Mexico City, for about 10 years after learning how from his father. He fills glasses for his two guests, one of whom is a young man.
“This is an aphrodisiac,” Don Pedro tells him with a wink and a sly smile. “If a young man drinks this, he will have a baby within a year.” Then, realizing that his other guest wasn’t so young, leans towards him and whispers, “This is better than Viagra.”
Those statements may be apocryphal, and may not be the main reasons behind pulque’s resurgence, but the drink’s definitely making a comeback in Mexico.
Pulque is made from the same plant as mezcal and tequila, but it’s fermented while the other liquors are distilled. Like many things in Mexico, pulque has a long history and, also like many things here, the Spanish did their best to get rid of it.
Pulque maker Don Pedro.
There are a number of Aztec gods and legends associated with pulque. Mayahuel, the goddess of maguey, is also sometimes identified as the goddess of pulque. She’s often depicted emerging from a maguey plant with a cup of pulque in her hand. Some sources name Tepoztécatl, one of her sons, as the god of pulque (El Tepozteco, a temple on a hill in Tepoztlán, a lovely pueblo in Morelos, is dedicated to him).
Some of the confusion may be due to the fact that Mayahuel had 400 children, most of whom were males, and were also involved in some way with pulque and intoxication. Whoever discovered it and however it got here, it’s been around a long time. Evidence points to it originating with the Otomís, as long ago as 2000 B.C.
In pre-Hispanic times, pulque had many functions. It provided nutrition, was used in religious ceremonies, as medicine and in special events, like weddings and feasts honoring warriors. It was also given to the priests performing human sacrifices and also to the victims. But it began to fall out of favor with the arrival of the Spanish.
Although they did not ban it outright, the Spanish did their best to discourage its consumption, seeing it as unclean and something that was corrupting indigenous populations. The biggest threat came in the late 19th century when German brewers arrived in Mexico and a campaign was begun to promote beer and denigrate pulque.
Rumors spread that pulque was made using a muneca, a cloth bag filled with excrement. “That was a myth,” said Javier Francisco Zarza Ramírez, owner of 5 Monas, a pulquería in Coyoacán, Mexico City. “It was created so that beer companies could take over a lot of territory from pulque.”
Still, many people apparently decided not to take any chances and, seeing beer as something European, modern and perhaps more hygienic, turned to it for refreshment. But recently, more Mexicans, especially younger ones, have discovered pulque, partly because of its strong connection to Aztec culture and its health benefits.
If there’s one thing that Don Pedro and other pulque makers (called clachiqueros) need to have, it’s an abundance of patience. “It takes 20 years or more for a maguey plant to mature,” he said. At that point he can begin making pulque from it but there are several steps and a wait of another year before that can happen.
“When the leaves are thin,” he said, “the plant is ready.” He first cuts away the leaves surrounding the heart of the maguey (they’re used for barbacoa), scrapes the heart with a tool called a raspador and places a stone on top of the heart. “This is to prevent water from getting in. Then you wait a year. It is important to wait.”
After a year, the heart is scraped out again and the plant starts producing aguamiel (honey water); this is non-alcoholic and drunk for its medicinal properties. “At first, there are only one or two glasses a day,” he explained. “Then it increases after a month or two.” A large plant produces nine liters a day and he collects the aguamiel twice a day, sucking it out using an acocote, a traditional tool made from a gourd. Typically, after about six months, the plant dies.
The collected aguamiel is poured into a large container and although it already contains bacteria and yeast that will cause fermentation, clachiqueros add starter or seed pulque to hasten the process. “It takes only one day for the aguamiel to ferment and make pulque,” he said. “It will be sweet for one or two days and after that it is stronger but the flavor is not as good. The flavor changes as the plant ages. It is like wine. There is pulque in Hidalgo but ours is better because the soil is sweet.”
People bring their own bottles to Don Pedro, which he fills for 20 pesos (about US $1). Since the pulque continues to ferment, it’s critical to keep the cap loose to avoid an explosion. The beverage can be found in almost all of the small pueblos surrounding Mexico City but there’s no need to make the trip as it can be readily found in the city.
Patricio González Librado has been selling pulque on a street corner across from the Coyoacan Market for 15 years and readily extols its many virtues. “People like it because it is natural,” he said. “It cures gastritis and other stomach problems and cleans the lungs. I drink a glass at lunch and another at dinner.”
Flavored pulques at 5 Monas in Coyoacán.
For those who prefer to enjoy their pulque inside, there are many pulquerías to choose from.
5 Monas, in Coyoacán, typically has a dozen different flavored pulques — called curados — sitting in jars on the bar and a barrel of unflavored pulque — called naturál – behind the bar. “Young people prefer curado,” said owner Javier Zarza, “although some adults will mix a little curado with naturál. Also, adults will drink it if they feel sick.”
A number of studies have shown that pulque does, indeed, have nutritional and medicinal properties. It’s a rich source of several vitamins, minerals and proteins. A study of the Otomís, an indigenous group in Hidalgo, found that pulque consumption was their second most important source of nutrition after tortillas. It lowers cholesterol and stimulates the immune system and has also been used to treat gastrointestinal diseases. But, of course, not everyone drinks it for its health benefits.
“Pulque makes me happy but doesn’t bother my stomach,” said Emilio Patino. “With alcohol, if you drink too much, you get a headache the next day. With pulque, you get drunk but you don’t get a headache the next day.”
He took a sip of his pulque naturál. “Pulque, corn, tacos pastor, tequila, these are all things that define Mexico.”
The writer is a frequent contributor to Mexico News Daily. He lives in San Gregorio Atlapulco, Mexico City.
Despite the fact that the municipality of Huejutla de Reyes, Hidalgo, is No. 6 in the state for coronavirus deaths, the municipality’s director of regulations, Juventino Molinos Cerecedo, says the virus is “pure bullshit” and encouraged residents to go out and “have fun.”
Molinos made the expletive-laden comments in a short video posted to social media on Wednesday where he introduces himself as “Doctor Juventino,” filming himself while driving with a mask around his neck.
As of Thursday morning, the video had been viewed more than 14,000 times. Molinos removed the footage from his Facebook page later on Wednesday but his comments had already gone viral.
Some were calling for Molinos to be fired while others viewed the pandemic as a government invention.
Molinos made the comments despite the fact that 30 people in the municipality have died from the disease and 237 confirmed cases have been diagnosed.
Among the dead is Juan José Redondo Márquez, leader of a bar owners’ association and a Covid-denier who passed away in June of respiratory failure caused by Covid-19.
Up until the day before his death, Redondo had assured fellow bar owners that the disease did not exist and pressured municipal authorities, including Molinos, to allow the reopening of bars and cantinas.
Media reports say that when his condition worsened, family members called the Red Cross for help, but Redondo refused to be transported to the hospital via ambulance in a capsule that protects paramedics from coronavirus. The ambulance left and Redondo died shortly after.
As of Wednesday, Hidalgo had 5,035 confirmed cases of the coronavirus and had seen 822 deaths.
The Mexico City racetrack that has been home to the Mexican Grand Prix — part of which already houses a temporary Covid-19 hospital — will also become the site of drive-in movie theater.
The Hermanos Rodríguez racetrack at the Magdalena Mixhuca sports center will now house a temporary movie theater as well, government officials announced.
The racetrack theater will show films twice weekly from July 26 through August 19 each Sunday and Wednesday, Culture Minister Alfonso Suárez del Real said, in an effort to provide cultural opportunities for citizens.
Films scheduled to be shown include Alfonso Arau’s A Day Without a Mexican and Alejandro González Iñárritu’s Babel. There will be two showings each day, one at 5 p.m. and another at 8 p.m. Gates will open 90 minutes before each show.
Tickets will be sold on Ticketmaster for 10 pesos per vehicle, around US 45 cents. Cars can have up to five passengers, and SUVs and vans can carry eight. The racetrack can accommodate 415 vehicles.
The sports center location was chosen due to the fact that it is located in a part of the city with few cases of infection.
Attendees are invited to bring their own popcorn and must wear masks when stepping outside their cars. Passengers and drivers will have their temperatures taken at the racetrack’s entrance and unaccompanied minors are prohibited.
Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum said the drive-in program will be evaluated and could expand to Lake Chapultepec and Xochimilco if all goes well and coronavirus cases in those areas remain low.
“Keep in mind that we must protect ourselves to protect others and to be able to ensure that the return of cultural, collective activities through the Mixhuca drive-in of Mexico City is truly a success that allows us to get together again,” Suárez said. “These are new conditions, but we believe that people are going to support us and that the people are going to enjoy it.”
The president said the conservatives who pretended to be liberals are finally removing their masks.
President López Obrador has hit back at a group of intellectuals after they penned a letter calling for the creation of an opposition bloc to seize congressional control from the ruling Morena party at the 2021 midterm elections.
“I celebrate that writers and journalists who have always defended the neoliberal … model are forming a group, defining their position and leaving simulation to one side in order to seek to restore the old regime, characterized by an absence of democracy, corruption and inequality,” López Obrador wrote in a response published online on Wednesday night.
“History teaches us that when a process of transformation is put into practice, a conservative reaction is always produced,” the president said.
Earlier on Wednesday, the newspaper Reforma, which López Obrador frequently rails against, published a letter signed by 29 people including journalist and historian Héctor Aguilar Camín, former foreign minister Jorge Castañeda, former health minister Julio Frenk and historian Enrique Krauze.
In the letter entitled “Against the authoritarian drift and for the defense of democracy,” the intellectuals charged that the ruling Morena party and its allies have increased their power in Congress by “buying” lawmakers who were elected as representatives of other parties.
“The consequence has been the asphyxiation of pluralism … in the interest of subjugating legislative power to the dictations of the executive,” the letter said.
The intellectuals claimed that López Obrador has taken steps to concentrate power in his hands at the expense of the other two branches of federal government and the states. They said that the president has “destroyed or damaged public administration and constitutional institutions” and harmed “the capacities of government.”
“He takes unilateral decisions, polarizes society, … discredits the authority of specialized bodies such as the INE [the National Electoral Institute] and attacks all forms of expression that don’t identify with his political vision,” the letter said.
The intellectuals also took aim at the federal government’s “contemptuous attitude” toward Mexico’s scientific and cultural communities, and “the movement of women who are fighting for equality.”
The López Obrador administration rejected a national agreement to reactivate the economy and save thousands of jobs and instead used the pandemic to “accelerate the demolition of the state and the control of power,” the intellectuals said.
The letter by intellectuals, published as a paid advertisement Wednesday in Reforma.
If the president and his political allies continue to take Mexico down the same path, hard-won “democratic advances” will be lost, they said.
“We think that it’s imperative to correct the course and recover the political pluralism and balance of powers that characterize constitutional democracy,” the letter said.
“The only way to achieve it is through a broad citizens’ alliance which, together with the opposition parties, builds a bloc that via the popular vote at the 2021 parliamentary elections reestablishes the true face of citizens’ diversity. It’s necessary that this alliance obtains the majority to ensure that the Chamber of Deputies recovers its role as a constitutional counterweight to the executive power and [thus] forces the government to respect democratic diversity.”
In his response, López Obrador said it was “completely legitimate” that opposition to his government exists but expressed doubt that those who oppose him will be successful in seizing control of the lower house of Congress.
“In 2021, the people will freely decide their destiny. And the truth is I don’t believe that the majority will support the return … of corruption, tycoons, organic intellectuals, privileges, hypocrisy, marginalization, classism and racism,” he wrote.
“There is no doubt that we are living in interesting times. Whether it’s out of interest or anger, the conservatives who pretended to be liberals are finally removing their masks,” concluded the president’s missive.
Speaking at his regular news conference on Thursday, López Obrador declared that he is the “most attacked president in the last 100 years,” charging that there are attacks against him every day.
The president said that the constant attacks against him and his administration amount to “a badge of pride because it means that we’re making progress” in transforming the country.
The intellectuals who put their name to yesterday’s letter “long for a return to the decay” of corrupt past governments whose officials entered into pacts with criminal groups, López Obrador said.
“They’re within their rights because we live in a democracy but the people will decide [who governs Mexico]. In a free way, they will decide what they want moving forward, how they want their destiny, that of their family, and that of their children, to be shaped. It’s a free and sovereign decision.”
