Why Is AMLO Worried About an Outsider? She’s Funny, Profane — And Inspiring David Ignatius - Washington Post
go to original August 21, 2023

Sen. Xóchitl Gálvez, an opposition presidential hopeful in Mexico, speaks to reporters after registering her name as a candidate in Mexico City on July 4. (Fernando Llano/AP)

Update: Mexico’s Broad Opposition Coalition Announces Sen. Xóchitl Gálvez Will Run for Presidency in 2024 (AP International)

Xóchitl Gálvez is a Mexican original. She’s a radiant, broad-faced Indigenous woman who grew up in extreme poverty, studied math over the protests of her abusive, alcoholic father, and battled her way to building a prosperous tech company and becoming a senator. Now she is rocking Mexican politics.

Gálvez is the leading opposition candidate running to succeed President Andrés Manuel López Obrador. Clothed in a simple embroidered dress during an interview here, she is by turns funny, profane and inspiring. As she explains how she battled off an attacker as a girl in the barrios, you can see why the populist autocrat López Obrador seems worried about her.

Gálvez describes how she had come to the capital after winning a math contest. She was living in Iztapalapa, one of the city’s most violent neighborhoods, preparing to study engineering. When a man tried to rape her at 17, she attacked him with a metal soldering iron. “When I beat that guy, I realized I was a brave woman. From then on, I have never been afraid of anyone.”

She certainly doesn’t seem afraid of López Obrador — or of the generals, corrupt politicians and drug lords who silently back his government. López Obrador has denounced her, his government has leaked her private business records, and he has claimed she is a tool of the rich elite. He has also attacked the national election commission that struggles to keep Mexican democracy alive and well.

“I have the ovaries to confront him. I hope you have the balls to follow me,” she recently told an audience in Chihuahua, according to one of her advisers. That’s the kind of comment that is disrupting Mexican politics.

Xóchitl (pronounced “so-cheel”), as her fans call her, keeps coming. Partly because of the president’s attacks, her name recognition and popularity have soared. And polls show she is likely to win a Sept. 3 primary that will select the opposition coalition’s candidate for the June presidential election. She has gained popularity because of her eccentricity — riding around town on an electric bicycle or dressing up as a Tyrannosaurus rex to dramatize López Obrador’s proposed election-law changes that she claimed bring back the “Jurassic era.” But she knows that her mission is deadly serious.

Read the rest at Washington Post

Related: Mexico ‘99.9% Certain’ to Elect First Female President, Expert Says (Border Report)

Related: Candidates Vying to Run To Become Mexico’s President Under Amlo’s Party Close Their Campaigns (Associated Press)

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