Weeks before announcing her aspiration to become a candidate for the Presidency of the Republic, Xochitl Galvez’s objective was quite another: to be head of Government of Mexico City.
It was a project that had been working on for a long time. Her experience as governor of a mayor’s office and being the main shareholder of a company dedicated to providing operation and maintenance services for intelligent buildings gave her, according to her, the necessary experience to hold the position.
A ‘breath of fresh air’ from the National Palace
Everything changed after the bickering with President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (AMLO).
The president affirmed in one of his press conferences that the senator of the National Action Party (PAN) had voted against approving a reform that elevated his government’s social programs to the rank of law.
Galvez requested the right of reply to deny the president’s statements, since she had voted in favor of the initiative. However, she was not granted.
Then he went to the Judiciary to demand the right of reply at the president’s press conference. And a federal judge ruled in his favor.
However, with everything and an amparo in hand, Galvez was denied access to the Treasury room of the National Palace to respond.
From that moment on, argue with the president He gave it a platform with enough potential to compete in 2024.
Days after announcing her aspiration to become the candidate of the opposition front, Lopez Obrador returned to the charge: accused her of representing the interests of conservatives.
And Galvez assumed himself as a victim. As a political persecuted that sought to be destroyed from the presidential power.
Later, the publication of the tax information of his companies further fueled this narrative: from his rostrum, President Lopez Obrador abused his power to undermine a political opponent.
Without intending it, AMLO ended up revitalizing the opposition that, until before Galvez announced his aspiration, none of those who were emerging as candidates registered real possibilities of victory against the contenders that emerged from the ruling party.
Paradoxically, the attacks from the National Palace were nothing more than a ‘breath of fresh air’ for the opposition in Mexico.
Politically persecuted like Lopez Obrador?
His insistence that she is persecuted of the Government places Galvez, under the perspective of a good part of the media, in the same place that Lopez Obrador played when he was head of Government From Mexico City.
At that time, President Vicente Fox Quesada (2000-2006) did not stop attacking the politician from Tabasco, whom even his government tried to defy, that is, cancel his political rights so that he would not participate in the 2006 presidential election.
The popular mobilization, according to AMLO, managed to prevent Fox from getting away with it.
That onslaught against him ultimately ended up strengthening his candidacy, as he gained a level of popularity that his management as ruler of the country’s capital had not given him.
In the case of Galvez, although it is still little known in various entities of the Republichis name already sounds with force in the bulk of the media and is frequently a trend on social networks.
He did it thanks to an involuntary accolade: the constant mentions from the National Palace they ended up becoming a key element of their propaganda.
An invitation that later became uncomfortable
In order not to turn against those who sympathize with lopezobradorism, Galvez has sought to avoid positioning itself as the antithesis of the political project of the mexican president.
In the narrative of the senator for the PAN, some achievements of the Government of the so-called ‘Fourth Transformation’ are recognized, especially the implementation of social programs aimed at the lower-income population.
The government’s strategy to combat poverty and social inequality, however, is insufficient from Galvez’s perspective. With everything, does not propose to reverse what has been achieved, but rather to complement it.
In his opinion, the Government has been satisfied with “giving money”, with which, “the problem is not solved in depth”, since those who receive this support cannot overcome their condition of dependency.
Hence, according to Galvez, it is necessary strengthen these programs through job training courses.
It proposes that people be provided with job skills. He assures that it is the only way to overcome poverty in the long term. “You have to teach people to fish,” he is heard saying at his rallies.
From the National Palace, however, it has been described as a political figure belonging to the old regime.
His time in the Fox government and his candidacy for various positions of popular representation under the Accion Nacional acronym are, according to the ruling party, irrefutable proof of his alliance with conservatism.
Galvez, however, has reversed this approach with equally irrefutable proof: Lopez Obrador’s invitation, before the 2018 election, to join his political project.
Before the 2018 elections, Galvez assures that he received a visit from Andres Lopez Beltran, son of AMLO, and Claudia Sheinbaum, today a candidate for the ruling party for the Presidency who is leading the polls.
From his house located in the Lomas de Chapultepec, where the tycoon Claudio X. Gonzalez Guajardo also lives, the main architect of the Va por Mexico alliance, Xochitl Galvez refused to support the Tabasco politician.
That invitation, like others, ended up being very uncomfortable for members of the ruling party, which sometimes cannot find a way to justify its pragmatism.
While today they denounce that these are characters who represent the interests of the old regime, at the time, in the midst of an electoral situation, they did not hesitate to invite them to join their cause.
For Galvez, on the other hand, this invitation allows him today to go out and affirm that, in reality, shares the president’s ideals of fighting poverty, inequality and corruption. If it weren’t like that, she says proudly, she would never have been summoned.
His proposal is to make corrections, put aside projects that he considers unnecessary, such as the Dos Bocas refinery, and implement a government strategy that seeks to solve underlying problems.
Opportunity for conservatives
Nevertheless, from the ruling party it is insisted that Galvez is nothing but the candidate of the oligarchy.
And it is that, although in various positions it has distanced itself from the political parties of the old regime, in the central aspects, it is accused of being part of the same group of vested interests.
Dressed in a huipil, proud of her indigenous roots and with a campaign that is not focused on anti-lopezobradorism, her candidacy is, for those who sympathize with the ‘Fourth Transformation’, the only chance for the conservatives to return to power.
bumps in the road
Since the beginning of July of this year, Galvez began to emerge as the opposition political figure with the best chance of defeating the ruling party Movimiento Regeneracion Nacional (Morena) and its allies in 2024.
However, although Galvez’s candidacy is practically taken for granted, there are several pitfalls in sight that could derail his aspiration to build a winning formula.
In the first place, there is no guarantee that the political parties that make up the opposition front will manage to maintain cohesion.
Just last week, when it was revealed that the applicants for the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) were left out of the internal contention, the organization of the ‘Aztec sun’ announced that their participation in the alliance would take a “pause”.
The leaders of this party, which, by the way, has been the most punished in recent electoral processes, view with suspicion the advisability of staying in a coalition that, up to now, has not been characterized by offering them large dividends.
And it is not the first disagreement. In past years, the PAN also took a “pause” due to its disagreement with the positions of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), since, on several occasions, some of its legislators ended up approving government initiatives in Congress.
Second, although several party leaders Citizen Movement (MC) welcome the nomination of the PAN senator, at the same time, have refused to join an alliance that integrates political parties that, according to his point of view, they are a failure.
Establishing an alliance of four political parties is an objective that the architects of Va por Mexico have not achieved so far. And it is that from Movimiento Ciudadano it seems more profitable to compete alone.
Thirdly, from the ruling party it is assured that the growth of Galvez’s popularity is due, above all, to an overexposure in the media. “It’s a media bubble,” they argue.
There is no doubt that her level of popularity registered a turning point from the bickering with President Lopez Obrador, whom, for several weeks, the PAN senator made her main interlocutor.
However, more recently, the president has stopped mentioning her in his morning press conferences. In fact, the National Electoral Institute (INE) ordered him to stop making comments about Galvez.
In short, it remains to be seen if the former head of the National Commission for the Development of Indigenous Peoples will be able to maintain the growth of her popularity, no longer arguing with AMLO, or if, on the contrary, she ends up deflating.
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Source: RT
