Claudia Sheinbaum criticizes former President Vicente Fox over 2006 election fraud claims, Digi Mart USA News (Mexico): Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo criticized former Mexican President Vicente Fox Quesada after he reportedly said in a recent interview that he “made Calderón win” the 2006 election.
Sheinbaum called Fox’s statements “terrible” and reiterated that the 2006 election involved fraud against Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who ran against Felipe Calderón that year as the candidate of the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD). She made the remarks at her morning press conference at Palacio Nacional, where an audio recording of the alleged interview was played for her.
“We must remember, especially the young people, because 26 years have passed and 20 years since the electoral fraud; this year marked 20 years since the 2006 electoral fraud,” she said.
Sheinbaum said Fox’s statement now proves them right. She recalled that Fox took office in 2000 promising democracy, while López Obrador became head of government of Mexico City, then the Federal District, where his popularity grew after a universal pension for adults over 70 and support for working mothers and people with disabilities were introduced.
According to Sheinbaum, this began to worry Fox. She said that when López Obrador decided to run for the presidency, a campaign portrayed him as a “danger to Mexico.”
After López Obrador lost the election, citizens mobilized calling for a “vote-by-vote and polling-station-by-polling-station” recount. The gap between Calderón and López Obrador was 250,000 votes, and according to Sheinbaum, a representative count of between 8 and 9 percent of polling stations showed the difference was smaller.
“Today Fox comes to tell us that, indeed, he actively participated so that López Obrador would not become president of the republic,” she said.
Sheinbaum also called Fox’s comparison of governing Mexico to running a company terrible. “For them it was a business,” she said.
Sheinbaum also said that it falls to their generation to defend the country’s sovereignty against external powers and foreign interests.
