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News > Latin America

Mexico Senator Leaves PAN, Joins Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador

  • Senator Gabriela Cuevas announces her resignation to the National Action Party (PAN) during a news conference at the Senate in Mexico City, Mexico January 21, 2018

    Senator Gabriela Cuevas announces her resignation to the National Action Party (PAN) during a news conference at the Senate in Mexico City, Mexico January 21, 2018 | Photo: Reuters

Published 21 January 2018
Opinion

Senator Gabriela Cuevas announced today she will join Morena, the party of frontrunner presidential candidate, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador.

A Mexico senator from the center-leaning political party, National Action Party (PAN) is switching her congressional party affiliation. Senator Gabriela Cuevas announced today she will join the National Regeneration Movement, or Morena, the party of leftist presidential candidate, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador.

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Mexico Reaches Record Homicide Rate: 25,000 Murders in 2017

Obrador is the presidential frontrunner most likely set to win the July elections, according to recent polls out of Mexico. He is running on a pro-social welfare program and anti-corruption platform. He was Mexico City mayor from 2000 to 2005 and ran in the 2006 and 2012 elections.

“Today’s challenge is to move past party lines and transition toward a real democracy”, said Cuevas on her personal Facebook profile.

“In the same way I was part of the movement that brought an alternative to the presidency in 2000, in 2018, I’ve decided with the same democratic conviction to join the plural movement Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador” she adds.

Cueva is currently head of the Senate foreign relations committee. According to her now former party, Cuevas left because she couldn’t be guaranteed a senatorial seat on a PAN ticket.

Cuevas's decision follows closely after PAN created an electoral pact with the center-left Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) and Citizens Movement party to form the Mexico in Front (MF) coalition. This week MF officially registered PAN party leader, Ricardo Anaya, as its presidential candidate. Anaya has been the PAN Chamber of Deputies leader since 2015.

Anaya's coalition is second in opinion polls, but a new poll says that 41 percent of Mexicans have a “bad” or “very bad” impression of the new coalition.

Both Morena and MF candidates are trying to beat out the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) contender Jose Antonio Meade, currently ranked third in electoral polls. Meade just left his position as the secretary of housing last month under PRI president Enrique Peña Nieto in order to dedicate himself to the campaign trail.

The PRI is hoping Meade will put a new face on the party steeped in corruption and impunity. Mexico’s homicide rate has skyrocketed under Peña Nieto with 25,339 murders last year alone. Approximately 90 percent of which have been solved.

The polling agency Mitofsky said in late December that 57.4 percent of voters wouldn’t vote for PRI.  

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