The attacks between Sheinbaum and Gálvez dominate the first presidential debate and take focus away from the proposals

Low blows, personal attacks and few proposals. That was the outcome of the first presidential debate between Claudia Sheinbaum, Xóchitl Gálvez and Jorge Álvarez Máynez. The leading candidates entered the hand-to-hand combat from the start. Gálvez, the opposition's standard-bearer, took charge with the tragedy of Metro Line 12, the collapse of the Enrique Rébsamen School, the management of the pandemic and the accusations against the children of the president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador. Sheinbaum questioned Gálvez's assets, as well as the alleged opacity of her companies and the contracts she obtained with public institutions, such as the INAI.

“Claudia, you are not López Obrador, you do not even have his charisma,” said the candidate of the National Action Party (PAN), the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) and the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD). “You are a liar and corrupt,” said the candidate from Morena, the Labor Party and the Green Ecologist Party. Máynez, from MC, also entered the dispute with criticism and disqualifications equally against the two flag bearers. The answers to the questions sent by citizens through social networks were relegated due to the exchange of accusations, also blurred due to technical failures and a format that did not favor the exchange of ideas between the participants.

Gálvez made his strategy clear and set the tone from the beginning of the debate. The opposition candidate went on the offensive in the first segment, on Health and Education, and she reminded her rival of the protests by relatives of children with cancer, the management of the pandemic in the capital and the shortage of medicines. “I would call you the ice lady,” said the former senator, blaming her opponent for her lack of empathy for the sectors affected by the López Obrador Government and presenting her as a “cold woman” and “heartless.” Sheinbaum defended himself by saying that it was “despicable to profit from people's pain.” “There is no profit here, those seeking justice are defended,” said the opponent, who arrived at the INE headquarters accompanied by searching mothers, victims of the Line 12 case and the collapse of the Rébsamen School.

Xóchitl Gálvez on the esplanade of the National Electoral Institute. Gladys Serrrano

Sheinbaum endured the first segment of the debate without responding to the attacks, but then moved on to the strategy of a head-on collision against Gálvez, whom he referred to several times as “the representative of PRIAN.” The official candidate questioned Gálvez's assets and also pointed out a conflict of interest with a contractor when the opposition candidate was mayor of Miguel Hidalgo. Regarding this accusation and a contract with the INAI from 2023, Sheinbaum took out a sheaf of documents that she, she said, she would deliver to the moderators, journalists, for them to investigate. “In addition to being a liar, she is corrupt,” she said. When Gálvez mentioned the appearance of some of Sheinbaum's relatives in the

Panama Papers

, the official candidate reverted: “Everything the PRIAN candidate says is absolutely false. How to believe a liar?

“My hands are clean,” Gálvez assured in the face of his rival's questions. The opposition candidate said that “having a company was not a crime” and she added that no irregularity has been demonstrated in her political career. “You are not a

corcholata

, you are a cover,” the opponent settled to go back on the offensive. Supported by a contrasting campaign against her rival, the former legislator sought to present herself as the only viable alternative to Morena's electoral power. Sheinbaum chose to present this election as a referendum on the continuity of the Fourth Transformation, López Obrador's political project. Álvarez Máynez, placed in the middle of the two candidates, had problems finding his place in the discussion, but then he distributed darts to both opponents. “To talk about corruption you have to have the moral authority,” he told his rivals. The Citizen Movement candidate wanted to show himself as a “third option” compared to the “old politics.”

For this first debate, which dealt with health, education, transparency, combating corruption and vulnerable groups, Sheinbaum based a large part of his interventions, his proposals and defense, both on the results of López Obrador's management and on his own Administration. in the Government of Mexico City (2018-2023). “Today we have an honest president, they will never be able to say the same about the PRIAN presidents that the candidate represents,” said Sheinbaum, in reference to former presidents Felipe Calderón, Vicente Fox and Enrique Peña Nieto. The Morenista candidate returned to the charge against Gálvez and questioned him for having broken a promise that she would donate one of his houses to the Salesiano School and that it finally ended up in the possession of a niece of Calderón. She also accused her opponent of harboring Santiago Taboada, candidate of the PAN, PRI and PRD for the Government of Mexico City, and the real estate cartel, a real estate corruption plot that occurred in mayors of the capital. “I live in a rented apartment, she lives in a real estate cartel house,” Sheinbaum said.

Claudia Sheinbaum upon her arrival at the electoral institute. Gladys Serrano

Questions about politicians who support candidates in their parties came to light everywhere. Álvarez Máynez criticized Gálvez for Alejandro

Alito

Moreno, leader of the PRI, and Manlio Fabio Beltrones, former senator and former president of the party, investigated for his hidden accounts in Andorra. “She is the candidate of the worst PRI,” he said. Gálvez asked Máynez to “tone down” his criticism and reminded him of his militancy, precisely, in that party, and then went on to question Sheinbaum about the collaboration of Manuel Barlett, an old PRI member, in the López Obrador Government, and for the inclusion of Eugenio Hernández, former governor of Tamaulipas from the PRI prosecuted for diversion of resources, among the lists of candidates for the Senate of the ruling coalition.

The debate was not without technical problems and some friction with the moderators, Denise Maerker and Manuel López San Martín. Sheinbaum and Máynez complained that the clocks placed to measure their interventions failed and claimed that some remaining seconds were added by mistake to Gálvez. The mess gave rise to attacks in the second part of the debate. “The PRIAN candidate wants to steal the time bag,” Sheinbaum satirized.

The meeting had a rigid format, which was long, lasting almost two hours and, paradoxically, left little space to delve into the contrast of ideas. It was also a reflection of what the first month of the campaigns has left. The official candidate insisted on postulating the existence of only two political options – the continuity of the transformation or the return to corruption – and she was more willing to engage in frontal combat than expected. The opposition candidate opted for a more self-referential and confrontational speech, to show herself as an option for change for the disenchanted. Álvarez Máynez, the least known on the ballot, saw the meeting as an opportunity to introduce himself to voters.

“I call on everyone to join this project. “I am going to be the first president of Mexico,” Sheinbaum stated in his final message. At the end of the meeting, she made comments about the format of the debate, said that “things went very well” and reiterated her activism in the Obradorista project. “For me it is an honor to be with Obrador. I think it is very difficult for the PRIAN candidate to say that it is an honor to be with Fox or with Calderón,” she pondered. Gálvez also referred to the possibility of a woman governing the country, although she clarified that “not just any woman” should take the reins. “I want to be the first president of Mexico to build a prosperous country,” said the opponent in her last intervention, which earned her criticism online for raising the flag and showing the national shield upside down. “We are going to put Mexico on its feet, today it is on its head,” she joked about the mistake at the end of the debate. The end of the debate also passed without surprises, with all participants proclaiming themselves winners, a lot of noise and few proposals. The candidates will meet again on April 28, in the second of three debates.

Jorge Álvarez Maynez, speaks as he leaves the INE facilities. Isaac Esquivel (EFE)

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