OPINION

Mexican President Andrés Manuel López obrador, surrounded by female members of his leftist National Regeneration Movement. Photo: Facebook

By THÉRÈSE MARGOLIS

In what was seen by many women in Mexico as a blatant affront to their cause to end the country’s surging levels of femicide and gender-based violence, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) marked Tuesday, March 8, International Women’s Day (M8), locked in the National Palace, congratulating himself for his political accomplishments (like, for example, more than 350,000 Mexicans dead from covid-19, a 7.3 percent increase in poverty nationwide since he took office, and a loss of more than a million jobs thanks to his refusal to support the private sector during the pandemic).

As some 75,000 Mexican women protested outside the National Palace demanding that the administration finally act against the impunity enjoyed by those who have killed more than 1,000 women in the last 12 months, and calling for respect from a president who has callously labeled their cause as “coup-mongering,” AMLO took a parade of selfies of himself surrounded by some 180 female members of his leftists National Regeneration Movement (Morena) government and party.

Rather than meeting with representatives of the protesting women, López Obrador shamelessly hosted a AMLO love fest in which his favorite lackey, Mexico City Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum (his personal pick for his successor in the 2024 presidential elections) lavished praise on her mentor.

“Andrés Manuel López Obrador was the first (Mexican president) who created a joint cabinet,” Sheinbaum said.

“The first president to nominate a female governor for the Central Bank of Mexico (Banxico) was López Obrador, who for the first time appointed a female secretary of security and citizen protection, who has proposed more women to the Supreme Court (SCJN) and the Council of the Judiciary.”

(Never mind that AMLO tried to extend his buddy Arturo Zaldivar’s reign over the Supreme Court in strict violation of the Mexican Constitution so he could could continue to rubberstamp AMLO’s arbitrary presidential decrees, or that López Obrador appointed and continues to defend Federal Attorney General Alejandro Gertz Manero, who has used his position to imprison and steal from his in-laws.)

Sheinbaum’s praise of the president was echoed by a slew of other politically blinded Morena officials, including Federal Deputy Andrea Chávez, who lauded his so-called Fourth Transformation (4T) government for “offering hope” to the Mexican people (a hope that, incidentally, has been left unfulfilled).

Following the flood of accolades, AMLO proceeded to congratulate himself, claiming (falsely) that his administration has more women in high-level political posts than any other country on Earth. (For the record, that honor goes to Rwanda, with 61 percent of all national government seats held by women, followed by Cuba and the United Arab Emirates, with 53 and 50 percent respectively. Mexico ranks in sixth place, with 48 percent female government representation, behind both Nicaragua and New Zealand.)

Clearly, for AMLO his 4T agenda is far more important than the nation’s women on 8M.