74% of Mexicans believe that López Obrador should oppose the candidacy of Salgado Macedonio

The controversial candidacy of Félix Salgado Macedonio to the governorship of the State of Guerrero has become a central front for Andrés Manuel López Obrador.

It is within Morena, the formation that supports the Government, due to the division and gap that the politician's nomination has opened, denounced for two violations and accused of other cases of sexual abuse.

And it is also outside the party, due to the deep social indignation that the scandal has generated before the federal elections of June 6.

74% of Mexicans believe that the president should oppose the candidacy, according to a survey by SIMO Consulting for EL PAÍS.

A majority of the voters of the State of Guerrero also agree with this position, 41%, although the data is not so strong.

In any case, only 5% of the population called to vote in the entire country approve of the support provided by AMLO.

The president has supported, without nuances, Salgado Macedonio, a veteran leader who was forged by his side in the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD).

His defense is based, in public, on two arguments: the candidate is the option with the greatest support from the rank and file and therefore, the president maintains, the accusations are essentially a "smear campaign" against Morena.

Despite this, once the complaints of his victims are known, 70% of Guerrero voters believe that the politician should not be a candidate.

That rejection, according to a survey by SIMO Consulting for EL PAÍS, rises to 86% throughout the country.

The opinion study, based on a national sample and another in the State, was carried out this week, between Tuesday and Thursday, while an internal Morena guarantee commission investigated Salgado Macedonio and studied the case, whose resolution is imminent.

One of the most discussed aspects of this political crisis is the closing of the ranks of the national apparatus of the party and of the president himself, who once again has attributed the scale of the scandal to his adversaries and the press.

A vast majority of Mexicans (68%) and a majority of Guerrero (55%) have shown "strongly disagreement" or "somewhat disagreement" with this thesis.

Even so, in general terms, approval for López Obrador's performance reaches 65% throughout the territory.

Salgado Macedonio's defense before the Morena Honesty and Justice Commission has focused on the fact that it should be the ordinary justice that, in any case, investigates the accusations of rape, which the politician has denied.

This, however, is an issue that also has to do with political exemplarity and the citizens understand this.

Asked if, once the accusations against the candidate are known, they would be willing to vote for him, more than 90% of Mexicans and more than 70% of Guerrero have shown "not at all willing" or "unwilling" to support him.

In general terms, the majority of voters consider the existence of allegations of abuse and violations against a candidate for public office should invalidate the nomination.

However, there is a relevant percentage, 25%, of those consulted in the State of Guerrero who are convinced that the accusations against Salgado Macedonio are false.

That number drops to 8% nationwide.

Despite the avalanche of internal criticism, the questions that have been heard from several Morena legislators and members of the same López Obrador cabinet as the Secretary of the Interior, Olga Sánchez Cordero, the decision of the party apparatus on the candidate is the one that most weighs for practical purposes.

The politician, who was a deputy, mayor of Acapulco and is a licensed senator, has the backing of leaders such as Mario Delgado, the national president of Morena, or Ricardo Monreal, head of the formation bench in the Senate.

If Salgado Macedonio finally attends the elections, with what is known about him so far in Guerrero, 41% of the population will have nothing for the work of voting for him and 19% declare themselves "unwilling."

In addition, almost half of Guerrero is in favor of voting for Morena if there is a change of candidate.

The general opinion around his figure, in any case, is generally quite negative.

For more than 80% of Mexicans it is "bad" or "very bad", as well as for more than 50% of Guerrero.

Only 9% of the voters in that state have a "very good" image of Salgado Macedonio.

And that perception runs the risk of having an impact on the performance of the López Obrador government, whose popularity remains high.

Asked about various topics, ranging from the management of the health emergency of covid-19 to the state of the economy, respondents place the fight against femicides in the worst place of the actions of the authorities.

32% consider it "terrible", according to the SIMO Consulting study.

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Methodological note

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Public opinion study, with men and women of legal age as the target population, carried out through probabilistic sampling based on the National Dialing Plan, including 800 effective cases (400 in Guerrero) by telephone survey between February 23 and 25.

At a 95% confidence level, the estimated margin of error is ± 4.9% for the national sample and ± 4.6% for Guerrero.

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