After a weekend trip to Baja California and Sonora, President Claudia Sheinbaum held her Monday morning press conference in the National Palace in Mexico City.
A milestone in the operation of the railroad across the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, a National Electoral Institute ruling and her ever-soaring popularity were among the issues she spoke about.
‘It’s an exceptional project — it provides an alternative to the Panama Canal’
Sheinbaum acknowledged that a maiden shipment of vehicles — 900 Hyundai cars from South Korea — was transported across the Isthmus of Tehuantepec by train over the weekend.
She said that “some products” had already been transported across the isthmus between Salina Cruz, Oaxaca, and Coatzacoalcos, Veracruz, but it was the first time that vehicles were taken across the 308-kilometer-long modernized railroad between the two ports.
The modernized railroad is the centerpiece of the Interoceanic Corridor of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec (CIIT) infrastructure project.
The docking of the Hyundai Glovis cargo ship in Salina Cruz on Friday was dubbed the “first arrival at the Interoceanic Corridor” in a banner unfurled at the port. The trans-isthmus shipment of the Hyundai vehicles was described as “the launch of a groundbreaking new route.”
@armandogonzalezm2 Le comparto este gran acontecimiento para #México!, el #corredorinteroceanico tiene vida! #MéxicoAvanza #ConectandoMundos #IstmoDeTehuantepec #logistica #hyundai ♬ Así Fue – En Vivo Desde Bellas Artes, México/ 2013 – Juan Gabriel
Sheinbaum said that the port in Salina Cruz is “still being developed” with public and private investment. Even so, “larger ships” have begun docking there thanks to the breakwater built during the presidency of Andrés Manuel López Obrador, she said.
Sheinbaum added that a grain storage terminal will be built at the Salina Cruz port and “other actions” will be undertaken to “strengthen the port.”
She was effusive in her praise of the CIIT, which is also slated to include a chain of 10 industrial parks.
“It’s an exceptional project — it provides an alternative to the Panama Canal,” Sheinbaum said.
“And when the port of Salina Cruz is finished, it will have a lot more activity,” she said.
According to the Oaxaca Ministry of Economic Development, the shipment of Hyundai cars is destined for the east coast of the United States. Transporting the cars from Korea to their final destination via Salina Cruz and Coatzacoalcos — where they are re-loaded onto a ship — reduces the total shipping time by five days in comparison with a voyage that includes traversing the Panama Canal, according to the ministry. It said that total logistics costs are 15% lower, and highlighted that it takes nine hours to transport the vehicles across the isthmus by rail.
Former Navy Minister José Rafael Ojeda Durán asserted in 2023 that Mexico would become a “world shipping power” thanks to the construction of the trade corridor between the Pacific Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico across the Isthmus of Tehuantepec.
Sheinbaum to challenge INE ruling against promotion of judicial elections
Sheinbaum told reporters that her government has not yet been formally notified of the decision by the National Electoral Institute (INE) to prohibit federal, state and municipal governments, public institutions and individual officials from promoting Mexico’s first ever judicial elections.
“We haven’t been notified yet,” she said, adding that such a rule only takes effect after notification of those affected.
The judicial elections will be held on June 1 thanks to a controversial judicial reform approved by Congress last September. The official campaign period for candidates for judgeships, including Supreme Court justice positions, began on Sunday.
Sheinbaum said that her government has simply been reminding people that the elections are coming up, not campaigning on behalf of any candidates.
She made it clear that she doesn’t agree with the INE’s ruling, and on both Sunday — when the ban took effect — and Monday when she didn’t comply with it.
“We’re not going to promote voting for one person or another, but simply participation [in the elections],” Sheinbaum emphasized.
She told reporters that the federal government will challenge the INE’s decision at the Federal Electoral Tribunal “because we believe it’s important that the executive power and the legislative power, without directing [citizens to vote for] one person or another, … participate in the dissemination of this transformational event that will take place in Mexico on June 1.”
Sheinbaum and other federal officials say that the election of judges is necessary to rid the judiciary of corruption and other ills such as nepotism.
Critics of the judicial elections argue that the election of judges will erode the independence of Mexico’s judiciary because it will come to be stacked with judges sympathetic to the ruling Morena party’s agenda, thus removing a vital check on executive power.
Another poll, another sky-high approval rating for the president
A reporter noted that a poll conducted for the El País newspaper and W Radio detected an approval rating of 82% for Sheinbaum in March, up from 80% in January.
The president — as she invariably does when flattering poll results are mentioned at her mañanera — thanked the people of Mexico for their support.
She added that her government will “never betray the people.”
Sheinbaum said that the high levels of support she enjoys reflect a “very different” reality in Mexico to that perceived or promoted by “the famous commentariat of intellectuals from the past linked to the regime of the past — that before 2018.”
López Obrador took office in late 2018, marking the commencement of the so-called “fourth transformation” of public life in Mexico, of which the current president says she is building “el segundo piso,” or second story.
By Mexico News Daily chief staff writer Peter Davies ([email protected])
