Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has sparked controversy after he made public a document allegedly exposing the business dealings of a leading opposition politician, Senator Xochitl Galvez. The document, which was posted on social media, claimed to reveal financial accounts of two companies linked to Galvez or her family. However, the authenticity of the information could not be verified by Reuters.
In response, Galvez accused Lopez Obrador of abuse of power and threatened to take legal action. She also accused him of using “the full apparatus of the state” against her. Galvez has been gaining ground as a potential main opposition candidate in the June 2024 presidential election, where she would face the candidate representing Lopez Obrador’s National Regeneration Movement (MORENA). As per Mexican law, Lopez Obrador cannot run for a second term.
Lopez Obrador claimed to have received information suggesting that Galvez had acquired contracts worth a specific sum since 2015. He attached a document to his tweet that purported to show details of some of that business, but did not disclose the source of the information or comprehensively detail the cited sum. A spokesperson for the president did not provide a comment on the matter.
This is not the first time Lopez Obrador has published financial information about a political adversary. Last year, he released the purported earnings of journalist Carlos Loret de Mola, a prominent critic of the president.
During a press conference, Lopez Obrador highlighted the amount of business Galvez had supposedly won, prompting Galvez to challenge him to back up his claims. She pledged to abandon her campaign if he could provide evidence, but urged him to resign from the presidency if he failed to do so.
The leftist president has positioned himself as a defender of Mexico’s poor majority against a corrupt and wealthy elite, whom he accuses of supporting Galvez’s presidential candidacy. Galvez, on the other hand, rejects this narrative and emphasizes her humble background.
The controversy surrounding the release of this document adds fuel to the already heated political atmosphere in Mexico as the country approaches the 2024 presidential election.