Morena confirms Salgado Macedonio as his candidate in Guerrero despite reports of rape

Félix Salgado Macedonio, during the state council of Morena.MORENA

Licensed senator Félix Salgado Macedonio was ratified this Sunday by the Political Council of Morena in Guerrero as a pre-candidate for governor of the State, despite complaints of rape and sexual harassment against him.

The politician turned out to be the candidate most voted by the militants of the Andrés Manuel López Obrador party through an internal poll to choose the contender in the next elections in June 2021. Although the nomination was endorsed by the state representation of Morena, the The party's National Committee has yet to rule on it.

The candidacy of Salgado Macedonio has been decided after a meeting in Chilpancingo, the capital of Guerrero, with 47 of the 90 councilors of the group in the State.

The appointment has led to harsh criticism from more than a hundred female activists from his formation, including several federal senators and deputies, and an internal investigation by the party's Honesty and Justice Commission that should reach a conclusion in the coming days.

The numerous accusations against Salgado Macedonio have not slowed down his political aspirations.

Last September, Mario Delgado, before being elected president of the party, declared that Morena would not accept candidacies from militants who exert violence against women.

"We are not going to accept any candidate who has a proven record or complaints of gender violence," and he stressed that the so-called Fourth Transformation, López Obrador's political project, could not be carried out if sexist violence is not eradicated.

As a leader, Delgado has indicated that Félix Salgado will be a candidate as long as he maintains his political rights, that is, as long as there is no firm sentence that condemns him.

"There is no sentence by any authority that proves that he has committed a crime (...) There may be many complaints, but you cannot become a judge," he responded this Sunday on a tour of Baja California.

Among the accusations that at least five women make against Salgado Macedonio is a violation committed in 2016 against a worker of

La Jornada de Guerrero

, when the politician was director of the media and another committed in 1998 against a minor that the Guerrero Prosecutor's Office dismissed for the statute of limitations after 20 years.

“Félix Salgado Macedonio came out as if he were someone else.

He came to me without saying anything.

He took off my top with force, put his hand on my neck and raped me, "says Paulina, the complainant, who requests anonymity for fear of reprisals and who spoke with EL PAÍS about the rape she experienced when she was 17 years old.

“He took me by the head, squeezed a little and started to stick his tongue in my mouth.

I said to him: sir, it is not correct, this is not good.

He told me: 'it's okay, don't be bloody [arrogant], ”says Brenda, another complainant.

In mid-January, the writer Marxitania Ortega related a similar event through her social networks: “He was drunk and when he approached me he did it in the worst way, lascivious, with an inappropriate hug, to say the least.

Do you know what it feels like at times like this?

Much disgust (...) You experience a lot of anger that someone feels entitled to touch your body in that way, "said the woman.

Leaving the party room where the meeting took place this Sunday, Salgado Macedonio declared that he did respond to the Party's Honesty and Justice Committee, a body that could still ruin his candidacy and reject him as his representative in Guerrero.

"They are internal things that I cannot air, but of course I did respond," the politician told the local press.

For her part, Morena's secretary general, Citlalli Hernández, pointed out that it is important that the case of Salgado Macedonio be investigated.

"Morena's position must be clear and forceful so as not to have any possible candidate who is violent or who has committed an act of violence against women," said the leader in a conversation with journalist Denise Maerker a couple of weeks ago.

President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, from the same group as the candidate, has supported Salgado Macedonio and said that it is a "partisan issue" typical of the electoral period.

"There is competition in some states because elections are coming, so all this generates controversy, accusations," said the president.

"When there are elections or competition, it is about disqualifying the adversary in one way or another," he added.

Women's groups have protested, since the former senator's nomination was known, outside the Morena headquarters in Mexico City and in front of the Guerrero Prosecutor's Office in Chilpancingo.

The protesters demanded that women not be put at risk with the nomination.

"A rapist will not be a governor," said the posters of the National Feminist Collective.