Two orange and green cars on a subway train form a “V”, suspended a dozen meters above a pile of concrete and scrap metal. The image has been looping in the media and on Mexican social networks since the collapse, Monday, May 3, of an overhead section of the Mexico City metro. The tragedy, which left 26 dead and nearly 80 injured, shakes the tenors of the left in power less than a month before the legislative and local elections of June 6, crucial for the reform project of the president, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador.
“Assassins! “,” Justice! “,” It was not an accident “… The messages and posters placed near the airlift, which collapsed in the south-east of the capital, testify to the indignation of the inhabitants. They were hundreds to demonstrate, Friday May 7, on the scene of the tragedy to denounce the negligence of the leaders of the left, at the head of the megalopolis since 1997. Every day, the press unearths the technical failures on this line 12, built ten years earlier to open up poor neighborhoods.
The president, nicknamed “AMLO”, is targeted through his two dolphins, approached for the presidential election of 2024: Marcelo Ebrard, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, who was mayor of Mexico (2006-2012) at the time of the construction of the line 12, and Claudia Sheinbaum, the current city councilor of the capital (elected in 2018). The trio embody this nationalist left in power for two and a half years which brings into play, on June 6, its parliamentary majority with its allies.
It is the largest local poll in recent history of the country: more than 2,000 mandates, including those of deputies, 15 of 31 governorships and thousands of municipal offices. The polls give the victory to the party of “AMLO”, the National Regeneration Movement (Morena), driven by the popularity of the president (about 60%, according to the polls). “But the search for responsibility in the metro drama could be detrimental to him, underlines political scientist Virgilio Bravo. Without a parliamentary majority, “AMLO” could no longer carry out its reform project for the rest of its mandate until 2024. ”
Multiplication of faults
The opposition is stepping up to the plate: “The government kills with its corruption and bad decisions”, insists Marko Cortés, leader of the National Action Party (PAN, right) and figure of a coalition that covers the political spectrum. Even the old formation of “AMLO”, the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD, left), is part of it. The opposition bloc accuses Mr. Ebrard, Mme Sheinbaum but also Mario Delgado, the president of Morena. The latter was responsible for financing the work of line 12 at the city hall of Mexico under the mandate of Mr. Ebrard.
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