With six months to go before Mexico’s next presidential election, President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador’s popularity is at 55 percent. His chosen successor, former Mexico City Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum, has a big lead of over 20 points in many surveys. And his governing Morena party should easily win the concurrent legislative elections. But a series of corruption allegations against the president’s family and party have put Lopez Obrador, better known as AMLO, on the back foot in recent weeks, eroding the teflon coating that has shielded him during his five years in office.
Two weeks ago, journalist Carlos Loret de Mola published a report claiming that one of the president’s sons, Gonzalo Lopez Beltran, is involved in a contractor network that has been charged with inflating prices for materials for the construction of AMLO’s flagship rail infrastructure project, the Tren Maya. Verified audios of Amilcar Olan, a friend of all three of AMLO’s sons, depict Gonzalo as having played a key role in steering the contracts to the network. And the allegations from the audio tapes have been largely corroborated by various documents obtained through freedom of information requests.
Loret has named his investigation into AMLO’s sons and their close business partners as “El Clan.” Last week, another investigation by Loret’s Latinus media outlet revealed that Daniel Asaf, AMLO’s personal assistant, acted as the brains behind many of the deals that Gonzalo participated in.
Source: World Politics View
