"The North Needs to Learn from the South": Mexico Poised to Elect First Woman President

this news is funded by viewers like you please support our work at democracynow.org this is democracy Now democracynow.org the Warr and peace report I'm Amy Goodman with Juan Gonzalez we turn now to Mexico where this Sunday millions of Voters are poised to elect the first woman president in Mexico's history The Landmark moment has filled many with hope as Mexico has one of the highest rates of gender violence and femicide in Latin America with at least 10 women murdered in Mexico every single day voters will be choosing between Front Runners Claudia Shin Bal and soil galz third candidate Jorge Alvarez MZ Shin Bal has maintained a significant lead in the polls ahead of June 2nd elections she is the former mayor of Mexico City member of the ruling left Moren party seen as a continuation of the current president amlo Andres Manuel Lopez oor while galz a former Senator is backed by a coalition that includes the conservative pre and Pon parties the pre or institutional revolutionary party ruled Mexico uninterrupted for 71 years until the 2000s rampant violence perpetuated in part by the decades long USB so-called War on Drugs is a central issue this campaign cycle has been one of the deadliest in Mexico with at least 34 candidates or aspiring candidates assassinated since September immigration and Mexico us relations are also pivotal issues in a minute we'll be joined by Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Maria aosa to discuss the historic elections but first let's turn to clips of Maria's recent interviews with both both font Front Runners uh Shin Bal and Galvez which recently aired on Latino USA Maria Noosa and her colleague pen Ramirez were in Mexico City earlier this year where they spoke to Claudia Shin Bal at a campaign rally they asked her how she'd handle immigration what is your message to Latino Mexican voters in the United States about this election in your candidacy we're going to fight for them for their rights and uh we're going to fight for the families in Mexico we want welfare for all the Mexicans now you have said a few days ago that Biden and Trump should stop stop talking about the the Mexican elections why you said that and what's your plan regarding immigration the best way to reduce migration is to invest in the countries where people have to leave and want to go to the US either if uh Biden wins or Trump wins there a lot of problems in the US and it's better that their campaign not use Mexico as the problem we are not the problem we are part of the solution they met Sile gz while the presidential C candidate traveled to New York to meet with Mexican voters here this is whatz said so what is your fresh new approach towards the issue of immigration now she did not really answer the question but she did say to us that we needed to understand that immigration is a worldwide problem and therefore the solution she said was to sit and talk she replied that if we don't sit and have a dialogue young people will keep dying on both sides of the Border soio Gales the other Mexican presidential candidate for more we are joined by maroos The poitz Sur prize winning journalist and founder of futuro Media host of Latino USA which is just release its new episode titled A presidenta will lead femicide plagued Mexico uh Maria it's great to have you with us at the table um why don't you start off by talking about the historic significance of these elections and what it means for what's happening in Mexico today you know what's interesting Amy because you and I have been doing this for a while right the reason why two women end up being the two front runner candidates is not just like oh it just happened there was a tremendous decades long work by feminists in Mexico along with feminists all over Latin America pushing for equality pushing for equity for women in the face of violence in the face of impunity the feminist movement in Mexico and Latin America just kept on pushing to the point where you were you were able to make it by law that there had to be parity in the government and this leads to both women ending up as candidates and it is historic you know I'm asking the question it's a little you know a little but which which country is more machista the United States that has two old men one accused of strange and weird sexual and coverups Etc and fraud Etc and the other one who's just quite elderly and in Mexico you have two women and so what they're talking about on the in the political debate in Mexico is really frankly light years away from the political debate that we're having in this country Mexico strangely Mexico Amy because like a North star when would I have said that I I could have never imagined and having said that I'm not you were born in Mexico I was born in Mexico and I've watched the entire political process I'm not paana impunity and violence against women corruption the assassination of multiple uh candidates it's it's a real problem but Mexico has a different political debate happening now uh and M I wanted to ask you if you could talk a little bit about the the major differences between the two uh candidates uh policy-wise clearly Claudia sh m is a uh is being supported uh by uh the current president uh uh Amo and uh and uh appears to have a very big lead in the polls but your sense of their differences so they they they will both say that they are from the left um SOI will say that she left uh Claudia Shane bom will say that she's obviously more to the left um the policy differences have to do kind of with the historical differences between their two parties as it were the mon party which was a street activist movement that now has ended up in the presidential Palace versus you have the Bri and the pan these are the two oldest parties in Mexico it would be like the Republicans and the Democrats getting together to support a candidate it is a very strange Coalition and so what they represent is actually these two very different parts of American History a having said that there's a big critique that Claudia shaneal will continue the policies of Amo she responds in a retort that's saying that's a misogynistic question you're saying that because I'm a woman I'm only going to follow what a man has done before me is soil Gales says that she's going to change things that she will root out corruption that she has a a vision but interestingly ju when I was with her and spent an hour with her and two days later I was trying to process like what what really happened in that hour-long interview what were we able to get at who does she really what does she really represent and I came to a strange conclusion it is strange but I feel like her entire candidacy is strange because of these parties supporting her and I said it's like she's the Sarah Palin of Mexico the center left Sarah Palin of Mexico in the sense that she's of like hi I'm here and and I just kind of ended up as the main candidate here and and I'm bright and I'm smart and I'm a Survivor and and everything is going to be fine and it's like Mexico is much more complex than that you know that why do you continue to kind of kind of do this performative uh political stunts even here in New York she ended up riding her bike to the New York Times for a series of interviews there just I one she wasn't wearing a helmet who rides a bike in New York without a helmet and also why do you want to ride a bike in Time Square so um she does that and people kind of pick up on these performative acts that she does and also I wanted to ask you about the importance of the Mexican diaspora uh in uh in the United States for several years now uh Mexicans abroad who are Mexican citizens have been able to vote in the election you talk about the kind of Interest interest there appears to be in the US and Mexican communities you know what Juan I have been trying to get my Mexican citizenship back because when I became an American citizen in 1989 I had to give up my Mexican citizenship it has been it got messed up because of the pandemic but this I'm just one of probably millions of Mexicans who would like to be able to have a vote and a participation in the Mexican political process when you look at the how close recent Mexican elections for president have been you can understand why Mexican parties presidential campaigns are coming to ask for Mexicans in the United States to vote it's small now maybe 200,000 or so but if you continue to push to get after these votes of Mexicans living in the United States it could actually be quite influential and I think for the politics of Mexicans living in the United States it's um it's a welcome idea that we don't have to decide am I from here am I from there we actually can vote in both places I wanted to go to some of the clips the interviews you've done this is suchil gavis speaking to you Maria about her experience with gender violence how do you define feminism she said that she believes in equality for all women in terms of political economic and Reproductive Rights and to emphasize why this matters to her she told us she suffered violence as a child child this story has become a part of's stum speech her father she says was a violent man who terrorized her as a child one time she tells us in the interview he pointed a shotgun at her mother and threatened her she says that they escaped but that this experience marked her and then I asked her what she thinks the solution might be for this kind of gender based violence in Mexico what SOI said to us was that women in Mexico need a support system in cases of violence and that men need to know that if they commit violence against women they will be prosecuted this is another clip of Latino USA's interview with Claudia Shane bound um future media executive producer Penny Ramirez asks her about her presidency what it would mean for Mexico she spoke to her at a campaign rally in Mexico City what's goingon to be unique about your government well you know I'm a scientist so I'm going to put a lot of effort in science and development we're going to go for Women rights and we're going to continue bringing education a good health system for the people uh housing and uh what I call the rights for the Mexican people so that's Claudia Shane Bal the uh well she is the front runner for sure they both call themselves feminists women got the right to vote in Mexico when in 1953 and what about abortion so abortion right now actually is more Progressive in Mexico than in the United States a both this is actually not like a primary issue in the in the presidential campaign right now unlike here in the United States because what's happening in Mexico is trending towards legalization across the entire country there are parts of country of in Mexican states where it is legal but it it's not kind of the the kind of abortion politics that we're having here where you would expect Amy a Catholic country to be making the decisions on abortion like the ones that are being made in the United States that says it has no relationship with the church in its politics so right now again for women on the issue of Reproductive Rights more Progressive but on the issue of vience on the issue of impunity uh the number of female candidates running at different parties in different states lower much lower down the ballot being assassinated it's really a huge issue and this is the primary contradiction for Mexico you're going to nominate you're going to elect a woman but you still haven't resolved the fact that women are being murdered at the rate of about 10 to 11 every single day and the impunity that comes with it and Maria in terms of this issue of Mexico electing a woman president several Latin American countries have already already done so Chile on buas Argentina Brazil uh and now Mexico and yet here in the United States uh this uh uh the uh the potential for electing a woman president still has will have to be postponed for another four or eight years I'm wondering your sense of the difference especially with the United States supposedly claiming to represent a much more forward-looking view on uh uh equality between the uh genders well Juan you won't be surprised when I say that the north needs to learn from the south there's always this perspective that the north the United States is leading the way is the way to go and in fact what the United States and the feminist movement in the United States needs to do is to look at what happened in Mexico and the rest of Latin America the number of countries that have elected a woman president in Latin America is stunning considering the fact that the United States is still at about a third of women in Congress you have countries like Rwanda that have legalized parody in our in political representation and our country is lagging behind it is huge one um on the issue of immigration and whether or not Claudia or soil more likely it will be Claudia who ends up as president will do something profoundly different fresh stand up to the United States say no more remain in Mexico begin to do kind of political battle on the issue of immigration as you know this is one of my key issues uh as a as an immigrant journalist in the United States it to be seen um the thought though of a Claudia Shane bomb who frankly you know Stanford educated speaks perfect English a sitting down in any kind of meeting with a potential Donald Trump is uh it it messes with the brain although she I don't think she will take things sitting down and uh it's very interesting there were just major protests in Mexico City outside the Israeli Embassy around Gaza and um amlo the president and the marina party supporting Mexico joining um South Africa in its genocide case against Israel at the international court of justice and Claudia Shin bam and Shane Bal the front runner following Amo um is a Jewish uh woman correct this is extraordinary because the fact that the that she is a Jewish woman but she doesn't really she's she's a scientist so she's not very religious um but she is a Jewish woman and then her name is Shane bomb um it's not a big issue which is fascinating in and of itself in some ways um you know my colleagues Mexican journalists in many ways are leading this conversation of how you cover uh politics and you don't play into a authoritarian impr propaganda games for example there might have been journalists who wanted to kind of fuel the fire of saying but she's Jewish she's Jewish um it hasn't really been an issue and if what's more interesting is that Claudia shaine bom and soil Gales both of them wearing whis which is the traditional indigenous Mexican you know it because of the embroidery this is the fact that both of them are like we love indigenous women we love our indigenous Roots again fascinating for Mexican politics which again to me that would be the word that I use in terms of Mexican politics right now fascinating that is not the term that I would use when discussing us politics at all and Maria finally in terms of the legacy of uh Andres Manuel Lopez orador uh obviously he came into office with a lot of hopes of of progressives around the uh the hemisphere uh he remains very popular but of course he's under a lot of criticism for his handling or his mishandling of the femicides of the killing of journalists of uh of uh his uh his dealings with the United States in terms of immigration your sense of how he will be remembered and what were his accomplishments well it is a very divisive time in Mexican Politics as well so we can't walk away from that I mean my own family is deeply divided this feels very much like us politics fames divided we won't talk about politics over dinner or no no political conversations because of how divisive it is look Amo um again came from a street movement to end up in the presidential Palace you're right all of the critiques that surround him um but there is a lot of support for the policies that he's done specifically in terms of progressive policies regarding let's say protection for workers it protection for domestic workers um raising the minimum wage these kinds of issues which are getting to the class divisions in Mexico if if you're Progressive you're supporting these policies if you are let's say more on the conservative side you see Amo and his policies as a threat you see his populism as a threat by the way we understand how threatening a populist movement can be we're seeing it here in the United States but there is going to be a legacy that he in fact wants to make history and be remembered as the president that changed the trajectory of a modern Mexico for those who support him they will say he did that for those who are critiques will say he began taking Mexico down the tubes and they are unforgiving they they do not like Amo and they do not like Claudia but more than likely they will not uh they will not that will not change in the polls in terms of Claudia walking away with the presidency democracy Now is funded by viewers like you please give today at democracynow.org give

Channel: Democracy Now!

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Keywords: Democracy Now, Amy Goodman, News, Politics, democracynow, Independent Media, Breaking News, World News

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Length: 19min 38sec (1178 seconds)

Published: Wed May 29 2024