There is certainty about the elections in which 95 million Mexicans are called to elect 20,000 public officials on June 2, including the president.
For the first time, Mexico will have a female head of state.
Claudia Sheinbaum, candidate for Morena (National Regeneration Movement), the party of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, starts as a favorite with up to 30 points ahead in the polls over her main rival, Xóchitl Gálvez (Tepatepec, Hidalgo, 60 years old).
A computer engineer and former senator, Gálvez represents a coalition that brings together the conservative National Action Party (PAN), the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), and the social democratic Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD).
The Frente Amplio candidate denies being, as López Obrador maintains, a puppet of the oligarchy and places herself in “social democracy.”
In an interview with this newspaper, she explains that the reason for her two-day trip to Spain is to meet with Spanish politicians and members of the Mexican community.
Previously, before traveling, Gálvez had assured that his visit to Madrid would not seek to make Spain apologize for the conquest, in a clear ironic allusion to López Obrador's claim in 2018 that generated surprise.
Ask.
What is your agenda on this trip?
Answer
.
We proposed meetings with members of the Government to the Spanish ambassador in Mexico, but we still have no response.
The person he is already confirmed with for tomorrow is [the president of the Popular Party, Alberto Núñez] Feijóo.
Q.
You ruled out meeting with Vox, were you afraid that they would associate you with the extreme right?
A.
In my youth I was a member of the Marxist Workers' League and, when they want to attack me, they bring out my Trotskyist side or say that I am far-right.
I am a center-left, social democratic woman.
I am not a member of any party unlike the president who is a member of the PRI.
I am a candidate who, although it gives the president a lot of pain to admit it, I come from below.
I am on the PAN bench, but I am not a member of that party.
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Follow the last hour of the elections in Mexico live
P.
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What is your program for Mexico?
R.
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Return peace and tranquility to Mexicans.
There will be no hugs for criminals, but law enforcement.
It is obvious that social security is fundamental: 50 million Mexicans do not have access to health.
We went back 10 years in education with López Obrador and, in mathematics, 20 years, according to the PISA report.
The issue is to stop spending money on PEMEX [state oil company], where the Government has lost 50 billion dollars that should have been used for health, education and public safety.
The only way out of poverty is, in addition to a social program, a well-paid job.
And that is achieved with investment.
Not with hate, division or polarization.
The Government represents corruption and the inability to govern.
Q.
It is said that, if elected, you will implement neoliberal policies.
A.
Whoever is neoliberal is the current president.
The oligarchy's candidate is Claudia [Sheinbaum] because she represents economic power in Mexico and the use of money for an electoral campaign.
Thousands of billboards, thousands of trucks with advertising, millions of pesos spent on social networks.
Her party has just been fined by the INE [National Electoral Institute] with 60 million pesos [more than three million euros] because they did not declare all those resources that were used in her campaign.
Many businessmen have doubled their fortunes with the Government of Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who is not the people's candidate.
P.
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The candidate is not López Obrador.
It's Sheinbaum.
R.
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The candidate is him.
He is the one who makes the campaign proposals.
The only thing she says is that she is going to continue what López Obrador has done.
Xóchitl Gálvez, in another moment of the interview with EL PAÍS this Sunday in Madrid.
Claudio Alvarez
Q.
The polls give your rival an advantage of up to 30 percentage points.
A.
Because they pay for surveys and buy media with advertising.
The president would like an election to be won with a survey, when 50% of the people do not respond to those surveys because they are afraid that their social programs will be taken away.
Furthermore, if we pay attention to the polls, [Sheinbaum] has lost 14 points [according to a recent poll that reduced the distance between both candidates to 16 points]
P.
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Will there be a massive mobilization of the electorate that is believed to favor it?
R.
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People are going to mobilize because this Government is a failure.
If you talk to your colleagues in Mexico, ask them about security.
Ask them how organized crime is and its collections from farmers, avocado and lemon producers, and those who sell chicken.
Mexico's extortion is worse than ever.
States like Chiapas, like Tabasco, were states with poverty, but they were not dominated by organized crime that today controls a third of the national territory.
Ask about health, which is collapsed.
In Mexico, one million people have died and it is the responsibility of this Government, 800,000 due to covid, according to the excess mortality index published by the INEGI [National Institute of Statistics and Geography].
We lost four years of life expectancy and the president says that we have a health system like Denmark, where 15 days were lost.
P.
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Can the opposition reject López Obrador's constitutional reforms, which include, for example, increasing pensions, without being punished by voters?
R.
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That's a political campaign.
The president can implement many of these reforms today.
Why doesn't he pay retired teachers a full pension if he is the boss?
Because he doesn't want to.
He eliminated the popular [health] insurance that was universal and today he proposes creating universal insurance.
Many of the reforms would not need to be in the Constitution because they are public policies.
But I already told the president that I approve them immediately.
I return to vote for them as a senator to put them in the Constitution.
All reforms of a social nature, no one can oppose.
Now, there are other reforms that are not going to pass, such as his attempt to destroy the INAI [Institute for Transparency, Access to Public Information, Protection of Personal Data and Accountability], or to keep the Court [the reform proposes reducing from 11 to 9 the judges of the Supreme Court, who will be appointed by popular election].
If the president had wanted to benefit Mexicans, he would have presented these reforms on the first day of his administration and not the last.
P.
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His campaign coordinator in Nuevo León, Francisco Cienfuegos, is being investigated for alleged money laundering.
A.
That those guilty [of corruption] be investigated and punished.
I'm not going to put my hand in the fire for anyone.
Who has this Government punished for corruption when they have had years to investigate?
What the president does is make the corrupt people go with him, he rewards them and appoints them ambassadors.
P.
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He has criticized the president's policy towards the United States and the agreement he reached with Donald Trump for the return of immigrants.
A.
We accept the return of migrants in exchange for nothing.
Well, in exchange for the US ignoring the lack of democracy in Mexico.
It would have been a good agreement if resources had been provided to care for migrants, who today are on the streets, in violation of their human rights.
The EU gave money to Turkey so that Syrian migrants were in a condition of human rights protection.
Also, what happens to the 11 million Mexicans who are in the United States?
What has the president done to fight for his legal documentation?
Nothing.
He has given up.
Q.
What do you expect from Spain and the European Union if you become president?
R.
Cooperation.
I love the European Union's climate agenda, which promotes renewable energy and environmental protection.
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