Originally from Monterrey, Fabrizzio Ulloa now lives and studies in Switzerland. (Prix de Lausanne Twitter)
Monterrey dancer Fabrizzio Ulloa Cornejo won first place in the prestigious Prix de Lausanne 2023, an international classical ballet competition held in Switzerland since 1973. Ulloa is the first Mexican to ever win this award.
“I almost fainted. I was shocked because it was something I always dreamed of and I always took it lightly and never really thought it could happen,” Ulloa said in a phone interview with Debate newspaper.
Fabrizzio Ulloa performs at Prix de Lausanne 2023. (Inbal)
This year’s award was special, since it was given to two dancers. Ulloa shared the prize with Spanish dancer Millán de Benito, age 15.
The competition, which celebrated its 50th anniversary this year, is focused on young dancers (15 to 18 years old) who seek to pursue a professional career in classical ballet.
This year’s contest took place from Jan. 29 to Feb. 4, beginning with 82 candidates, of whom only 22 moved on to the finals. Amongst the finalists was 18-year-old Amaury Zanete Pérez, another Mexican ballet dancer.
Ulloa was a student at the Inbal Higher School of Music and Dance of Monterrey and in 2021, he also won first place in the Youth America Grand Prix (YAGP) Junior Category. In this year’s competition, he participated as a student of the Basel Theater Ballet School in Switzerland, where he currently lives.
The winners (eleven in total) will receive a one-year scholarship to study at any school or ballet company of their choice that is partnered with the Prix de Lausanne.
The Mexican government is sending 150 people to assist following the disaster. (Marcelo Ebrard Twitter)
A Mexican Air Force (FAM) plane bound for Turkey took off Tuesday morning with a delegation to support rescue efforts after earthquakes devastated southeastern Turkey and northern Syria on Monday.
“Following instructions from President López Obrador, a Mexican Air Force plane with rescue teams and specialists will leave in the next few hours,” Foreign Affairs Minister Marcelo Ebrard tweeted Monday night.
Members of the Mexican army, marines and others are on their way to the site of the earthquakes. (Gob MX)
Ebrard also shared photos of rescue dogs joining the mission and of marines wearing helmets like that worn by Frida, Mexico’s beloved rescue dog, who became famous for locating victims after the Sept. 19 2017 Mexico City earthquake. Frida died in November at age 13.
Defense Minister (Sedena) General Luis Cresencio Sandoval said Tuesday morning during López Obrador’s press conferencethat 150 people are traveling with the rescue and support delegation including soldiers, marines, members of the Mexican Red Cross and foreign ministry personnel.
The professional non-profit “Topos” rescue brigade will also be sending members to aid in the search and rescue efforts.
As of Tuesday, the Mexican Embassy in Turkey had no record of any Mexican citizens affected by the earthquakes.
The planned Tulum Airport site showed evidence of major clearing work already done when this photo was taken in December. The project has not yet been given approval by the Environment Ministry, although it was granted provisional approval by law. (Photo: Elizabeth Ruiz/Cuartoscuro)
Friday was the last day of a period of public input on the environmental impact for the proposed construction of Tulum Airport, but some local activists are saying that the inclusion of comments from the process is a sham, given that construction work on the site already reached the 20% mark in the month before the consultation opened on Jan. 9.
President Lopez Obrador announced the 20% figure himself in December at his daily press conference, an assertion that appears to be backed up by photos taken by the news agency Cuartoscuro in December of a long swath of cleared land on the site, and heavy machinery sitting on cleared land.
Animal Político has reported that the project as planned will result in 1.3 million trees being felled at the site to make way for the airport, as well as a military base to be located onsite.
The Defense Ministry (Sedena) is slated to build both the airport and the military base in the Quintana Roo municipality of Felipe Carrillo Puerto, not far from Tulum, on parcels of land owned by the military and the federal government.
The military air base and the airport, which President López Obrador recently announced would open in December of this year, will have the capacity to receive 4 million passengers per year. For reference, that’s a bit less than a tenth of the number of passengers that moved through the Mexico City International Airport (AICM) in 2022 and nearly eight times less than the 30 million that passed through Cancún International Airport in the same year, according to Ministry of Infrastructure, Communications and Transport figures.
Ángel Sulub Santos, an indigenous Maya and member of the U Kúuchil k Ch’i Community Center in the Felipe Carrillo Puerto, told Animal Político that the government “isn’t asking if [they] want or if [they] don’t want the airport. The public consultation does not guarantee the people’s right to prior, free and informed consent. It is not a mechanism for effective participation.”
The Mexican army’s military engineers were deployed in Tulum last March to work on the Mayan Train. Critics say it also set up them up to work on the Tulum airport project, although it hasn’t been fully approved yet. (Photo: Elizabeth Ruiz/Cuartoscuro)
Aáron Siller, director of the southeast regional office of the Mexican Center for Environmental Law (CEMDA) agreed. He told the news outlet that the request for public commentary amounts to nothing more than a simulacro (a sham).
“Let’s imagine that the public consultation determines that it is not the ideal place for the construction of the airport: it will not be possible to relocate it, and there has already been an environmental, social and cultural impact [in the community]. This is a simulated consultation.”
Siller also criticized the request for citizen input as a process not accessible to the local population, saying it requests commentary on a highly technical document that is difficult for the general public to understand, requires Internet access to see it, and is in Spanish despite the fact that a large part of the population in the area speaks only the Mayan language.
Work was able to begin on the project before the public input process started because of a presidential decree that has allowed the government to declare López Obrador’s flagship projects to be of public interest and national security, and thus subject to provisional approval while the project goes through the regular permitting process.
“A project can’t be evaluated in five days,” Siller said.
The local population and the scientific community have another concern: the environmental damage that will be caused by the airport’s construction. It is being built on top of the Holbox Fracture Zone and over a karstic system with underground rivers.
The public consultation does not guarantee the people’s right to prior, free and informed consent. “It is not a mechanism for effective participation […].” says local activist Ángel Sulub Santos. (Photo: Maya Goded Colichio))Moreover, the Sian Ka’an Biosphere Reserve, is located near the project site. The environmental and noise pollution caused by the airport could cause serious damage to the aquifer, the subsoil, migratory birds, and other species that inhabit the jungle, Santos said.
“It is not just about the airport but about what is generated around it in terms of environmental, social and cultural impacts,” he said.
Supreme Court Chief Justice Norma Piña Hernandez, seated at front, second from left, attracted attention when she remained seated when AMLO began a speech during a ceremony marking the 106th anniversary of the Mexican constitution. (Cuartoscuro)
President López Obrador declared Monday that he was “very pleased” and proud that the chief justice of the Supreme Court (SCJN) didn’t stand up before he delivered an official address in Querétaro on Sunday.
Norma Piña, who last month became the first ever female chief justice of the SCJN, remained seated when other officials rose to applaud López Obrador before he gave a speech marking the 106th anniversary of the Mexican constitution.
Speaking at his regular news conference on Monday, the president said Piña may have been tired or simply didn’t want to stand up to acknowledge his presence.
“I was very pleased — very, very pleased because that wasn’t seen before; the court justices used to be employees of the president,” said López Obrador, who has been highly critical of Mexico’s judiciary.
“… Since the rule of Porfirio Díaz the division of powers, the balance between the powers was spoken about but in reality the power of powers was the executive,” he said.
“When had a chief justice ever remained seated at a ceremony like that? That fills me with pride because it means we’re carrying out changes, it’s a transformation. It’s no longer the president who gives orders to [Supreme Court] justices, and it’s also a lie when, in an exaggerated way, a dictatorship or tyranny is spoken about.”
López Obrador’s remarks contrasted with those of his communications chief, Jesús Ramírez, who posted a photo of a seated Piña to Twitter on Sunday and wrote that it was “unfortunate that not everyone respected the protocol of the ceremony.”
In her own address on Sunday, Piña said that “judicial independence isn’t a privilege of judges,” but rather “the principle that guarantees the proper administration of justice.”
Mexico City Police Department arrested Carlos Caro Quintero on Monday around noon. (Photo: SSC-CDMX/Twitter)
Mexico City police have arrested a man identified as a brother of notorious drug lord Rafael Caro Quintero.
Police chief Omar García Harfuch announced the arrest on Twitter Monday, saying that Carlos “N” – identified as 61-year-old Carlos Caro Quintero in media reports – was taken into custody in the Miguel Hidalgo borough of the capital.
Convicted drug lord Rafael Caro Quintero, founder of the Guadalajara Cartel, who is currently in custody in the Altiplano prison in México state.
He said that the suspect is “a member of a criminal group that operates in the north of the country” and that Mexico City police were “alert” to “any situation” that could arise in response to his arrest.
The Mexico City Ministry of Citizens Security (SSC) said in a statement that Caro Quintero was detained in Lomas de Chapultepec, an affluent neighborhood west of the historic center. He was stopped after police noticed the vehicle in which he was traveling had its license plates covered, the SSC said.
It said that police seized a firearm and associated paraphernalia from the vehicle as well as what appeared to be eight kilograms of marijuana and “124 doses” of cocaine.
The arrest comes almost seven months after Rafael Caro Quintero – the founder of the now-defunct Guadalajara Cartel and the convicted murderer of United States DEA agent Enrique “Kiki” Camarena – was arrested in northern Mexico.
Caro Quintero was arrested while driving this Mercedes Benz automobile with covered license plates. (Photo: SSC-CDMX/Twitter)
Carlos Caro Quintero previously ran afoul of the law due to the possession of a firearm in the state of Jalisco in 2019 and causing a public scandal in Durango in 2022, according to reports.
The news website Infobae reported that he is one of 11 siblings of Rafael Caro Quintero, nicknamed “El Narco de Narcos.”
Carlos Caro Quintero hadn’t previously been linked to drug trafficking, Infobae said. He grew up in the Sinaloa municipality of Badiraguato, birthplace of imprisoned former Sinaloa Cartel leader Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán.
The merger of Kansas City Southern with Canadian Pacific is awaiting final approval from the US Surface Transportation Board, expected to come this quarter. (William HamlinTwitter)
Kansas City Southern México (KCSM), which for the moment owns the cross-border freight railroad at the heart of every rail transportation supply chain connecting the United States and Mexico, expects to make an investment of more than US $200 million in Mexico, says its president.
The investment, KCSM President Oscar del Cueto said at a press conference last week, seeks to improve the company’s connectivity and take advantage of nearshoring opportunities.
Kansas City Southern México President Oscar del Cueto.
Del Cueto said that the company saw 14% growth in sales in 2022, while its volume increased 7%, and that in 2023, he expects 7% growth in sales and 2% in volume, driven by the need for shipping by businesses in the automotive sector and the grain industry.
He said he also hopes the company’s numbers will improve once the US $31 billion merger between KCSM’s parent company Kansas City Southern and Canadian Pacific Railway is approved by U.S. officials and the two companies’ new merged railroad line — which will be the only single-line railroad connecting Canada, the United States and Mexico — can begin operation.
Assuming the merger receives authorization from the U.S. Surface Transportation Board, which del Cueto said he expects to happen this quarter and possibly by the end of February, CPKC will have a combined 32,000 km in rail lines crossing the three countries. It also gives the new company access to Kansas City Southern Mexico’s strategic ports of Lázaro Cárdenas, Altamira and Veracruz.
The merger between Kansas City Southern (KCS) and Canadian Pacific will stretch over three countries, which KCS México President Oscar del Cueto said would provide nearshoring alternatives to shipping by sea. (Photo: trains.com)
The merger comes at a strategic moment for international trade, del Cueto said, specifically for Mexico, which is benefiting from nearshoring particularly in the automotive sector, a strategic industry for the KCSM, del Cueto said.
Del Cueto did not address if and how KCSM would be restructured if the STB approves the merger. But he did say CPKC sees opportunity in Mexico after COVID-19’s disruption of logistics and supply chains, which has resulted in backlogged shipping seaports worldwide.
“With nearshoring, especially in the automotive sector, we have seen interest in the arrival of some companies, especially in the Bajío [area], and we are trying to offer a faster service regarding containers,” he said.
As an example, he spoke of what he said were CPKC’s plans to begin moving merchandise by rail from the Lázaro Cárdenas port in Michoacán to Chicago in 5 days.
By sea, the same trip normally takes 26–28 days, he said.
Nearshoring has occurred more in the northern part of Mexico, but CPKC also wants it to happen in the country’s central Bajío region, del Cueto said. With CPKC’s new extended railway, they will also offer three intermodal terminals.
“We already have three available in Toluca, San Luis Potosí and Salinas Victoria,” he said, adding that his company wants to offer containers to move both domestic and international merchandise.
Del Cueto also said that he recently met with Ministry of Infrastructure, Communications and Transport (SICT) head Jorge Nuño to discuss the benefits of the merger.
“We talked about how interesting it will be to have a single railway line in the three countries,” he said, adding that they will be “able to ship in Mexico and with reassurance that it will be the same supplier that takes the merchandise to Canada […].”
Del Cueto mentioned that this was already done case with the Volkswagen company, which transports many vehicles bound for Canada with Kansas City Southern México to the Mexico-U.S. border.
“We exchanged them at the border, and they were going on another railway to Canada. Now we will be a single line. It will be a service without borders, point-to-point, with a single lock.”
President López Obrador attended an event announcing the German carmaker's investment on Friday. (Gob MX)
German automotive manufacturer BMW announced on Friday that it will invest 800 million euros (US $866 million) in San Luis Potosí to produce high-voltage batteries and fully electric “Neue Klasse” vehicles. The company’s statement confirms President López Obrador’s announcement about the investment in mid-January.
The carmaker is investing in expanding its global production network to turn more than half of its global vehicle sales into all-electric models by the end of 2030.
BMW’s San Luis Potosí plant started operations in 2019. (BMW Group)
“We are systematically reconfiguring our production network to move towards electric mobility. In Mexico, we are investing 800 million euros in our plant and creating close to 1,000 new jobs,” BMW’s head of production Milan Nedeljkovic said during an event in San Luis Potosí attended by President López Obrador and the governor of San Luis Potosí, Ricardo Gallardo Cardona.
Approximately 500 million euros (US $536 million) are allocated for the battery assembly center on the company’s existing plant grounds, BMW said, and 500 additional employees will work there. Another 500 jobs will be created in other departments. The production center will cover an area of 85,000 square meters, Fortuna magazine reported.
The remaining 300 million euros (US $321 million) will be invested in adapting and extending the body shop and building a new assembly line to install the battery packs, plant head Harald Gottsche told Reuters.
“With the new investment, our plant in San Luis Potosí will play a central role in the transition of the BMW Group towards electric mobility,” Gottsche said. “The company reinforces its commitment to Mexico and its participation in our production network.”
AMLO, the governor of San Luis Potosí and CEO of the plant, Harald Gottsche (right), tour the facility. (SRE Twitter)
Gottsche added that the existing plant already produces three vehicle models delivered to 74 global markets.
Currently, the San Luis Potosí plant – which started operations in 2019 – has some 3,000 employees and manufactures the BMW 3 Series, 2 Series Coupé, and the new M2, the latter two exclusively for the global market.
A special feature of the “Neue Klasse” model to be manufactured at the plant is that the high-voltage battery is directly integrated into the vehicle structure. Thus, the assembly area in San Luis Potosí is expanding to incorporate this new process into its operations.
“We will start building, constructing the extensions and the new battery assembly in the beginning of 2024, and we will start (to ramp up) production at the beginning of 2027,” Gottsche said.
A BMW auto manufacturing plant. (BMW Group)
BMW’s investment comes hand in hand with its suppliers, as San Luis Potosí’s Ministry of Economic Development announced investments of up to US $300 million each by seven such companies.According to the state’s Economic Development Minister, Juan Carlos Valladeres Eichelmann, the first stage of investment could generate between 200-300 direct jobs.
According to Reuters, “the shocks of the pandemic and two years of supply chain chaos are colliding with a once-in-a-century shift of the industry’s fundamental technology as combustion vehicles give way to electric ones,” and Mexico appears ready to join the shift, at least in manufacturing.
Mexico wants to “attract all that we can,” said Foreign Affairs Minister Marcelo Ebrard in a Thursday interview with Reuters.
Ebrard said companies like Audi, General Motors Fiat Chrysler and Tesla have all expressed interest in manufacturing in the country.
Mayor Sheinbaum, a strong contender for the Morena Party candidacy for president, said that she'd like to see the abandoned high-speed train project built. (Locomotive 74/Shutterstock)
A federal government led by current Mexico City Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum could revive a rail project canceled by the 2012–18 administration of former president Enrique Peña Nieto.
Speaking to reporters on Sunday, Sheinbaum — seen as a leading contender to succeed President López Obrador — expressed her support for the construction of a new rail link between Mexico City and Querétaro city, located just over 200 kilometers northwest of the capital.
Sheinbaum, center front, made the announcement in Queretaro on Sunday at an anniversary celebration of Mexico’s 1917 constitution. (Claudia Sheinbaum/Twitter)
The Peña Nieto government awarded a US $3.75 billion contract to a Chinese-led consortium to build a high-speed rail line between the two cities, but it was revoked in late 2014. The project was later postponed as part of budget cuts announced in January 2015, and it hasn’t been revived since.
But in Querétaro city on Sunday, Sheinbaum said she had spoken to Querétaro Governor Mauricio Kuri about the importance of building a railroad connection between the capital and the Bajío region city.
She said the project was viable, that she personally would like to see it built and that it could be a priority for the next federal government, which will take office in late 2024.
Sheinbaum is seeking to represent the ruling Morena party at next year’s presidential election, and is widely considered as the preferred candidate of López Obrador. Foreign Affairs Minister Marcelo Ebrard is her main rival for the Morena candidacy.
The proposed route for the high-speed railway that was to start construction in 2017 but was then postponed indefinitely in 2015 due to budget cuts. (Sarumo7/Creative Commons)
Sheinbaum noted that the rail project would require federal investment and asserted that it would help reduce the number of freight vehicles on the Mexico City-Querétaro highway.
High-speed passenger trains were slated to run on the tracks that were to be built by a consortium led by China Railway Construction Corporation. It was unclear whether a government led by Sheinbaum would want both freight and passenger trains to run on a new railroad between Mexico City and Querétaro.
López Obrador said last month that the Ministry of Infrastructure, Communications and Transport was looking at the possibility of the rail project being revived, but acknowledged that construction wouldn’t begin during his term.
“The [Mexico City-Querétaro] highway is saturated. A Chinese company was going to build this train, [but] there were problems and it was canceled,” he said Jan. 23.
The current federal government is focusing its railroad construction efforts on the Maya Train project, which will link cities and towns in the states of Tabasco, Campeche, Yucatán, Quintana Roo and Chiapas.
The railroad, along which tourist, commuter and freight trains are slated to run, is scheduled to begin operations in late 2023.
The meeting of governors, attended by AMLO, took place over two years after 10 governors withdrew in protest of the president's policies. (Cuartoscuro)
The governor of Oaxaca was elected as the new president of the National Conference of Governors (Conago) at a meeting in Querétaro city on Sunday.
Salomón Jara Cruz, a Morena party governor who took office last December, was elected unanimously by other state governors and the mayor of Mexico City as the new head of the two-decade-old cross-party group.
President López Obrador (left) with governors Mauricio Kuri of Querétaro (center) and Salomon Jara of Oaxaca (right) at the Conago meeting. (Salomon Jara Twitter)
He said on Twitter that he asked his colleagues to “transform this mechanism of dialogue and embrace an agenda of social and collective wellbeing.”
The governor said there will be a “new pact” with the federal government “to achieve the construction of a state of rights and wellbeing.”
Jara also tweeted that he would lead Conago into a “new era” and that its members would work hand in hand with President López Obrador “on a social agenda to build a state of rights and promote the transformation of Mexico.”
“… Neoliberalism has died and the transformation lives,” he wrote in another post, an apparent reference to the profound change López Obrador claims to be bringing to Mexico.
Mauricio Vila (center), the PAN governor of Yucatán, at the Conago conference. (Mauricio Vila Twitter)
In an address after his election as Conago president, Jara said that governors would “work together” amid a “new stage” in the country’s political life. “There must be a new way of looking at things,” he added.
His Conago deputy is Yucatán Governor Mauricio Vila, a National Action Party (PAN) governor who has maintained a good relationship with López Obrador despite belonging to a party that is vehemently opposed to the federal government.
Sunday’s meeting in Querétaro came 2 1/2 years after a group of 10 governors, including five from the PAN, withdrew from Conago after deeming that López Obrador was a threat to democracy due to his alleged efforts to concentrate power in the federal executive.
The governors of 28 of the 31 states – the majority of which are governed by Morena – Mexico City Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum and López Obrador were present at the gathering. The governors described the meeting as a “relaunch” of Conago, the newspaper El Economista reported.
Jara said that the group will work on a reform to the way federal resources are distributed to the states, and also focus on issues related to public security, the electoral reform and the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, the free trade pact that took effect in 2020.
The governors on Sunday approved the creation of a USMCA committee within Conago that will be headed up by Michoacán Governor Alfredo Ramírez Bedolla.
The governors will meet again in Oaxaca next month. Vila expressed confidence that progress on a review of Conago statutes will be made at the meeting scheduled for March 21.
The Yucatán leader asserted on Twitter that the governors are “working together to transform our states.”
President López Obrador covered topics from electoral reform to the end of cargo flights out of Mexico City International Airport this week. (Gob MX)
Andrés Manuel López Obrador on Tuesday completed his 50th month as president, a position he unsuccessfully attempted to attain at the 2006 and 2012 elections.
AMLO now has just 20 months left to continue carrying out what he calls the “fourth transformation” of Mexico, as his successor will take office on Oct. 1, 2024.
The president has 20 months left in his term. (Gob MX)
Monday
Yucatán Governor Mauricio Vila – a possible opposition candidate at the 2024 presidential election – joined López Obrador at his first press conference of the week, during which the government provided an update on construction of the Calkiní-Izamal section of the Maya Train railroad.
“In Yucatán we’ve supported the Maya Train project from the beginning because without a doubt … it will allow us to bring [to the state] a portion of the millions of tourists who today arrive in Cancún and the Riviera Maya,” said the National Action Party governor.
“Without a doubt it will generate economic development and employment for us,” added the 42-year-old former mayor of Mérida.
Yucatán governor Mauricio Vila speaks at the Monday morning press conference. (Gob MX)
The president also noted that while a majority of participants in a 2021 referendum voted in favor of investigating Mexico’s five most recent presidents for crimes they might have committed in office, turnout was below the level required to make the vote binding.
“On several occasions I’ve expresses that revenge is not my strong suit … We’re not persecuting anyone,” AMLO added.
“From my point of view he’s a public servant without principles, without ideals, a fraud,” López Obrador said.
“… I really regret it, because I knew his father [academic and politician Arnaldo Córdova], we were friends, colleagues,” he said.
“… Since long ago, the INE has been taken over by conservatives, the conservative bloc. We won [in 2018] despite them.”
In contrast with his remarks about the INE chief, AMLO spoke with significant affection about former U.S. president Donald Trump.
“I hold President Trump in high esteem because he was respectful with us, the [bilateral] relation was good,” he said toward the end of his Monday mañanera.
“With President Trump I believe I had just one very productive meeting in Washington and we spoke by telephone 11 or 12 times. … They were very important calls, respectful calls for the good of two peoples and two countries. I even described those calls in my latest book,” López Obrador said in reference to his 2021 tome, titled A la mitad del camino.
Tuesday
In a health update, the government’s pandemic point man declared that the sixth wave of COVID infections was receding.
“We reached the peak at the end of the year and from the first week of January a process of descent began,” said Deputy Health Minister Hugo López-Gatell.
The first question López Obrador took was on the formation of a new group called Colectivo por México, which says it is seeking to “change the [political] course” of the country.
“They have the right to demonstrate, to form a group, but they’re against us and the transformation of the country that we’re carrying out with millions of Mexicans,” AMLO said of the collective, whose members include former health minister Julio Frenk and ex-Supreme Court justice José Ramón Cossio.
“They have the complete right to express themselves. … We’re obliged to guarantee the right to dissent. That’s what I can say.”
The president described veteran leftist Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas as an adversary due to his involvement in the group, which is abbreviated as Mexicolectivo.
“I hold him in high esteem, I respect him, I consider him a forerunner to this movement, but we’re living a time of definitions and this … [path] is very narrow, … it’s about being with the people or with the oligarchy,” he said.
An important figurehead of the Mexican left, Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas (son of President Lázaro Cárdenas) at a 2022 event.
Cárdenas – son of ex-president Lázaro Cárdenas, a former presidential candidate and co-founder of the Democratic Revolution Party – subsequently announced that he had taken the decision to cease collaborating with the collective.
Near the end of his presser, AMLO asked Mexican Social Security Institute chief Zoé Robledo to respond to a question about the 2009 fire at a daycare center in Hermosillo, Sonora, that claimed the lives of 49 children.
Some people found criminally responsible for the deaths have been sentenced to lengthy jail terms, but Robledo assured reporters that the federal government is still fighting for justice.
“From the beginning of the government of Andrés Manuel López Obrador – including in June 2019 when 10 years passed since this tragic fire, this crime – a criterion to attend to matters that have to do with justice has been maintained,” he said.
Wednesday
AMLO opened his third mañanera of the week with a broad attack on the media, one of his favorite punching bags.
Ana Elizabeth García Vilchis conducts the “Who’s who in the lies of the week” segment of the morning press conference. (Gob MX)
Many media organizations have decided to conduct a “dirty war” against us rather than publish “objective, professional, analytical, critical journalism with arguments,” he said.
They “attack and defame, with honorable exceptions of course, but those honorable exceptions are the exception not the rule,” the president charged during an introduction to the controversial “Who’s who in the lies of the week” segment.
López Obrador later turned his attention to drug smuggling through the Mexico City International Airport during past governments.
“A lot of you know how they got drugs through the airport. There was once even a shootout there. … The Mexico City airport was left without surveillance in order to get drugs through. It was managed by the Federal Police, which the conservatives defend so much,” he said.
Moving on to another matter, the acronym-nicknamed president welcomed Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas’ announcement of his decision to dissociate himself from Mexicolectivo.
“I was very pleased about the engineer’s letter,” AMLO said, acknowledging the 88-year-old’s civil engineering degree.
“I didn’t know but he had already informed the group [of his decision],” he said before confirming he had a good relationship with the veteran politician despite labeling him an adversary the previous day.
López Obrador later declared that Energy Minister Rocío Nahle – a Zacatecas native – could run for governor of Veracruz next year despite not being born in the state, and despite the Supreme Court’s ruling this week against a provision of a recent state law that allowed the parents of children born in the Gulf coast state to seek the position.
He said the minister qualifies as a candidate because she has been a Veracruz resident for more than five years – another still-standing provision of the so-called “Ley Nahle,” or Nahle Law.
“Rocío was already a federal deputy, a senator for Veracruz. [She was a] federal deputy for the district of Coatzacoalcos, … she’s a Veracruz senator on leave because she’s helping us in the Energy Ministry and in the construction and rehabilitation of the refineries,” López Obrador said.
Nahle confirmed on Twitter that she met the five-year residency requirement, even though she has lived in Mexico City in recent years.
Thursday
“Good morning. Ánimo, ánimo,” AMLO began, exhorting reporters to liven up for another early-morning press conference.
“We’re going to inform based on what you ask because there’s nothing to present today,” he said.
One reporter queried the president about the Federal Auditor’s Office detection of “irregularities” totaling over 830 million pesos during Delfina Gómez’s 2021-22 tenure as education minister.
“When the Federal Auditor’s Office conducts an investigation … irregularities aren’t acts of corruption in the majority of cases,” López Obrador replied.
“… As the maestra [teacher] Delfina is a pre-candidate or candidate [for governor] in México state they’ll be questioning her … [but] Delfina is an honest woman who has my complete confidence. She’s a woman who is incapable of stealing a centavo, nothing like the old-time politicians,” AMLO said.
Probed as to whether the money in question was “fairly channelled” to public education, he responded that it “surely” was before asserting that “there’s no problem at all.”
The president later offered his support for another politician – Nuevo León Governor Samuel García, a young and ambitious Citizens Movement party leader who is under pressure from the opposition over budgetary issues in the northern border state.
“We have a very good relationship with the Governor Samuel García, … we support the governor of Nuevo León because a lawsuit to strip his immunity has been presented, they want to remove him from office because his budget wasn’t approved,” López Obrador said.
“… He doesn’t have a majority in Congress and his adversaries came to an agreement and they wanted to impose a budget … and force him to allocate funds to public, supposedly autonomous companies run by the parties that are obstructing the governor,” he said.
In response to another question, the sexagenarian leader expressed confidence that the reforms his government has enacted will be long-lasting.
“Why will I be relaxed when my term ends? … Firstly because important changes are being carried out and it will be very difficult to reverse them. For example, how could they eliminate the pension for seniors? It won’t be easy if it’s in the constitution,” AMLO said.
“No matter who’s president, [the old-age pension] is a right. … Do you think that people will easily accept the pension being taken from them? No, touch wood, not even the conservatives could do it if they return.”
President López Obrador eating tamales on the Candelaria (Candlemas) holiday last year. (Presidencia)
At the closure of his presser, López Obrador noted that, in keeping with a Candlemas tradition, he would be eating tamales – specifically Michoacán-style ones known as corundas – for breakfast.
“One day I’ll buy [tamales] out of my salary and I’ll invite you to have breakfast and talk,” he told reporters.
“Really – we’ll talk, we’ll spend more time together. Thank you very much to all of you for being here.”
Friday
While responding to a question about unions’ compliance with USMCA trade pact obligations, AMLO spotted an opportunity to offer a lesson about the true meaning of the word democracy.
“Oligarchs … have a very peculiar way of thinking about democracy,” he opined.
“For them democracy is always having minorities in charge, … that’s the democracy they like, one of privileges,” López Obrador said.
“But democracy is power of the people, for the people and with the people. Democracy is people. Demos, I repeat, means people. Kratos means power. Democracy is the power of the people, oligarchy is the power of the minority.”
A YouTuber subsequently took the microphone and asked the president about the involvement of the National Electoral Institute (INE) in the process to elect the queen of the 2023 Fería Nacional de San Marcos, a huge fair held annually in Aguascalientes.
Candidates for the “Queen” of the San Marcos Fair in Aguascalientes. (Gob Aguascalientes Twitter)
The INE will facilitate electronic voting, Dany Santoyo noted before suggesting that the institute should instead focus on “more important issues” such as holding a citizens’ consultation to canvass opinions on the privatization of water services in Aguascalientes in the early 1990s.
“They could do both consultations,” AMLO said, acknowledging that the election of the fair reina is a “tradition.”
The INE should conduct that vote and one on the water issue at the same time, he said.
“That would be the best thing. … There are people who like [the fair queen contest], they enjoy it, that’s their right, it’s a very important fair. … It’s [also] very important to review water service contracts because they are abused – it’s the privatization policy [that is to blame],” López Obrador said.
The president later defended his decree suspending cargo airline operations at the Mexico City International Airport and asserted that the Felipe Ángeles International Airport has the facilities required to accommodate air freight carriers.
