between friction with López Obrador and political aspirations

Almost six months into the six-year term, the cabinet of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador registered the first resignation; today, a little less than two years before it ends, there have been almost 30 changes in the federal government.

Political scientist José Antonio Crespo believes that President López Obrador “the only thing that matters” is that the officials he appoints “respond and obey him.”

It demands “blind loyalty,” he assures, recalling that the Mexican president has said it “as is, with those words.”

“Yes we listen, but you are right, we ask for blind loyalty to the transformation project (…) not to me.

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“Most of the time, loyalty to people becomes abjection, servility, and we want loyalty to the project (…) that is what we ask for,” López Obrador declared on September 24, 2020, two days after Jaime Cárdenas Gracia resigned as general director of the Institute to Return the Stolen to the People (Indep), a position he held for three months, arguing that the Tabascan did not like his formal character because he asks for “blind loyalty.”

For Crespo, the President of the Republic wants to govern with “people who don’t nag at him” and who “answer him”, only.

“As long as they respond to him, the rest doesn’t matter. Whether they are corrupt or not; if they are cheaters; if they incur electoral delinquency, as is the case of Delfina Gómez. He does not care. The only thing that matters to him is that they respond to him and obey him.”

Although the officials “are not very prepared”, says the expert, it is enough that they “align themselves with what he says; that’s the profile.

And he sets an example of Leticia Ramírez Amaya, third Secretary of Public Education so far in the six-year term, a position she assumed on September 1 at the departure of Delfina Gómez, who resigned to run next year as Morena’s candidate for governor of the Mexico state.

“Although she has been a teacher, but that is not the same as managing something as big and complicated as the SEP; but he will not joke. They are people who may or may not be prepared, but they profess blind loyalty to him, which is what he asks, more than preparation and training.”

He agrees with those who consider that López Obrador is being accompanied by people who make up his closest nucleus to govern for the remainder of his term.

“On one hand, yes. Well, clearly with Adán”, he responds, referring to the Secretary of the Interior, Adán Augusto López Hernández, who succeeded Olga Sánchez Cordero from August 26, 2021.

The president, Crespo warns, “is going to start doing more irrational things between now and the election” of his successor in 2024.

“He is more focused now and he makes all the decisions based on finishing his works, however it may be, the Mayan Train is the one that is missing, and winning the election for his party in 24. All the priority is already there and he is going to take the necessary measures to ensure, inside or outside the law, the victory of his party”, he believes.

“I am and will be institutional”: Sánchez Cordero

Olga Sánchez Cordero, the first woman to hold the position of Secretary of the Interior, left the cabinet on August 26 of last year.

It was a personal decision to leave the cabinet, she explains to El Economista, while stating: “I left because I wanted to be a senator of the Republic.”

He clarifies that, contrary to any version, “I was always comfortable with the president” López Obrador.

“I had never had a boss, curiously (…) as a notary I did not have a boss, as a magistrate I did not have a boss, as a Minister of the Court I did not have a boss, as a Constituent Assembly I did not have a boss and my first boss really was the President of the Republic. , with whom I had an extraordinary relationship and he was generous, attentive and I would say kind and even affectionate with me. He was an extraordinary boss.”

He assures that “the president’s closest nucleus” and “his not so close group” support him to promote his project of transforming the country.

Without criticizing former officials who, once out of the cabinet, criticize the government they served, she says she couldn’t do it.

“First, because above all I have been, am and will be institutional (…) Everyone is free.”

“I moved from there”: Germán Martínez

Germán Martínez Cázares was the first official to resign from the López Obrador cabinet. On May 22, 2019, he left the position of director of the Mexican Social Security Institute (IMSS).

I am one of those who distinguish loyalty from servility. I no longer wanted to continue in a place where I was no longer comfortable with my conscience, ”explains who also returned to occupy his seat in the Senate.

It does not coincide with those who say that the president of Mexico is being accompanied in the final stretch of his mandate by his closest nucleus.

“He has the right to make his team with whoever gives him his gift, including Germán Martínez at the beginning.

“To speak ill of that is to speak ill of the first cabinet or the first appointments.

“He has the right and he is the one who is going to be accountable to the people of Mexico for the changes he makes, who he moves. He didn’t move me. I moved from there”, he maintains in an interview with this newspaper.

In general, of 19 Secretaries of State, who began the term of President López Obrador, nine have resigned, either due to differences with the president, or to follow their political aspirations.

rolando.ramos@eleconomista.mx