Mexico's president expresses dissatisfaction with country's first presidential debate ahead of June election
MEXICO CITY — There were plenty of reasons to criticize Mexico's first presidential debate in the run-up to the June 2 election. The format was a bit cramped, with candidate timers not working at several points and it was unclear how long candidates could speak.
But President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said Tuesday he has a new reason to dislike Sunday's debate, and it's not about him.
López Obrador has long focused on his legacy, likening his administration to the most heroic chapter in Mexico's history. There, he was angry that the moderator of the debate asked questions about corruption and problems with the education and health care systems. He says he has solved these problems.
“If you analyze it, the whole story of the debate revolved around what the opponent said,” López Obrador told a daily news conference. “The whole argument was to not acknowledge anything that was done under his administration, as if the focus was not on eliminating corruption completely.”
President López Obrador acknowledged that corruption cases continued to occur even after taking office in December 2018.
Discussion questions are not written by a moderator. They were chosen from questions submitted by citizens, and each candidate could choose from among a group of questions.
López Obrador cannot be re-elected because the constitution limits presidential terms to six years.
Newspaper columnist Salvador García Soto, citing unnamed administration sources, said López Obrador was also angry with his party's candidates because they did not adequately defend him.
Former Mexico City Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum is running for the president's Morena party. Mr. Sheinbaum is considered Mr. López Obrador's most loyal disciple and is leading in opinion polls in the presidential race.
But when asked how he would tackle corruption, he appeared to anger the president by referring to his own anti-corruption program in Mexico City, rather than López Obrador's efforts.
“The President was offended because Mr. Claudia did not show enough zeal in defending the federal government,” García Soto wrote.
López Obrador called his administration the “Fourth Transformation” and focused on three of the most heroic chapters of Mexico's history: the fight for independence from Spain from 1810 to 1821, the 1850s and the 1910s. It claims to be the successor to the liberal reforms that broke the domination of the church. -1917 Mexican Revolution.
