President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said Friday that those who accuse his government of having a pact with organized crime groups make “an unfounded” and “vulgar” trial. He even challenged them to present evidence of their allegations if they had them.
The president’s statements come a day after Porfirio Muñoz Ledo, former president of the Chamber of Deputies, and Francisco Labastida, former presidential candidate of the PRI, separately alluded to the fact that there is an alliance between this administration and criminals.
“(They are) wanting to confuse, to deceive that we, I have links with drug trafficking or with drug trafficking groups. Let’s go in parts. It’s really very ordinary, very vulgar all this. I regret this because, for example, Mr. Muñoz Ledo knows me very well, and he dares to argue that the government has ties to drug trafficking. It is a baseless, reckless trial,” Lopez Obrador said during his morning news conference.
“If you have evidence, let them present it, let them stop slandering; it is very regrettable, vulgar, low, but do not think that I am very worried, in the first place, because I am very calm with my conscience … and secondly, because it is false, I do not establish relations of complicity with anyone, that is why I can face the mafia of power.”
This Friday, @lopezobrador_ responded to the accusations of the former president of the Chamber of Deputies, @PMunozLedo, who accuses him of seeking to inherit an alliance with drug trafficking for whoever succeeds him in the 2024 elections. pic.twitter.com/PDDTYN2Oix
— Animal Politico (@Pajaropolitico) June 3, 2022
The president criticized that his “adversaries” make these accusations and responded that polls indicate that their acceptance among the citizenry remains at high levels.
Regarding Labastida in particular, he said that the PRI has “no moral authority” to speak and also rejected that, as Labastida said yesterday, there is a pact between him and former President Enrique Peña Nieto (2012-2018).
This Thursday, in an interview with journalist Carmen Aristegui, Labastida declared that in the 2018 elections the PRI helped López Obrador and Morena obtain more votes, so – in his opinion – now the López Obrador government is corresponding to Peña Nieto avoiding acting against him for possible irregularities.
López Obrador responded Friday that this is not true and that the only thing he recognizes peña Nieto is that he did not intervene in the 2018 race.
“Well, no, what I did was thank Peña Nieto that he didn’t get involved, like (Vicente) Fox did and like (Felipe) Calderon did,” he said.
In his statements this morning, López Obrador also criticized Carmen Aristegui, whom he accused of having “deceived” citizens by presenting herself as a defender of freedom of expression.
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