International
Candidates in Mexico face the last debate without mobilizing the undecided and between insults
The candidates for the Presidency of the opposition in Mexico, Xóchitl Gálvez and Jorge Álvarez Máynez, will have in the third and last presidential debate on Sunday their last chance to shorten the distance with the ruling party, Claudia Sheinbaum, who has led all the polls from the beginning.
This is portrayed by the specialists consulted this Saturday by EFE, Palmira Tapia and Miguel Tovar, who agree to mention, a day before the last confrontation, the bulk of people undecided about who to vote, a figure that, according to the Poligrama survey at the end of April, reaches 6.9%.
“There may be more discussion sessions and the compass still does not move is because something important in terms of information and how it is presented is still not forceful,” the political scientist acknowledges.
In addition, he points out that some polling houses are not treating the situation “neither professionally nor as a democratic exercise.”
In his opinion, some companies “redined” the representation of the undecided in their polls, in a context of urgency on the part of the candidacies to “have data very quickly and at hand.”
The analyst warns that, at this point, “it is difficult to think” that there are “very expectant” layers of population for knowing the proposals of the candidacies: “A good part of these undecided are people who, in plain, are not going to vote.”
Therefore, and since “not being a competitive choice” due to the wide distance in the polls between the two main candidates, he considers that the parties will not be dedicated to mobilizing these people.
Tapia predicts a Gálvez, standard-bearer of the coalition between the National Action Party (PAN), the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) and the Democratic Revolution (PRD), “even more combative”, because the strategy “worked” in the previous debate and “misplaced” Sheinbaum.
“The second debate was more interesting than the first because we saw more contrast of ideas, but also more personal disqualifications, which this is something that attracts the media,” he says.
He believes that this last confrontation, which will be held at the Tlatelolco University Cultural Center, “will be more of this type,” since it is the “last chance” of the opponent to win votes, an opinion that Tovar shares.
Although it clarifies: “Hardly, we will see a different sphin from the one we have seen with ‘you have no heart.’”
The political scientist speculates about the possibility that the applicant of the also opposition Movimiento Ciudadano (MC), Jorge Álvarez Máynez, will depose Gálvez in the second position on June 2.
“The novelty we have is that (…) it seems that it is being attractive to younger people,” he says.
For this last debate, he could combine “some blows” towards his opponents with the image of “candidate of proposals.”
In this sense, Tovar calls it a “meme of politics,” for his song “Presidente Máynez” and “the occurrences” that he has offered in the campaign, and predicts him “a filling profile.”
Despite the climate of apparent tranquility, Tapia recalls that the topics that the debate will address, such as violence and organized crime, are of high tension.
“It is so important that Gálvez has tried to take the issue of security as a flag for his campaign,” he says, and recalls the proposal for a mega-prison that the candidate launched at the start of the electoral race.
“On the side of Sheinbaum, it seems to me that she also has a challenge before her: to defend the position of the president (Andrés Manuel López Obrador) in this matter, (…) but also honoring what she did in Mexico City as Head of Government,” he analyzes.
And, in the lectern of Máynez, he predicts some “very progressive” proposals in this area, since he has positioned himself “against the alleged militarization” of Mexico.
For Tovar, one of the few “more or less different” things left by the triad of debates is MC’s ability to articulate communication campaigns.
“The gentlemen and ladies of MC are great for marketing, to make these yingles so sticky,” he smiles.
International
Austrian man arrested in Croatia with deceased woman as passenger in his car
A 65-year-old Austrian citizen was arrested at a border checkpoint in Croatia after attempting to enter the country in his car with a deceased woman sitting as a passenger, police announced on Tuesday.
The man was detained in a routine check in late November in Gunja, a border area separating Bosnia from Croatia, the police told AFP. Suspicious because they saw “no consciousness or movement” from the passenger, Croatian officers called a doctor, who confirmed the death of the 83-year-old woman, also Austrian, according to her identification.
The woman’s relationship to the suspect is unknown. She had died in Bosnia, and the man intended to repatriate her body to Austria to “avoid the formalities related to transporting a corpse,” according to the police. Croatian media reported that the man was her legal guardian.
Once her death was confirmed, a funeral service took charge of the body.
International
Colombian nationals arrested for human trafficking and disappearance of migrant boat
Colombian authorities arrested two nationals accused of the illegal trafficking of migrants to the United States and of endangering lives due to the disappearance of a boat with 40 people aboard, U.S. Department of Justice officials reported on Tuesday.
Hernando Manuel de la Cruz Rivera Orjuela, 52, and Luis Enrique Linero Pinto, 40, both Colombian citizens, were arrested on December 13 in Colombia at the request of the United States for their alleged involvement in a “transnational human trafficking operation,” the department said in a statement.
According to the charges, the detainees were transporting migrants to San Andrés Island in the Caribbean, where they would then be taken by boat to Nicaragua. The goal was to reach the United States through Central America and Mexico.
The accused are said to have advised the migrants on how to reach San Andrés Island, where they personally received them, arranged accommodations, and “took them to the boats that transported them to Nicaragua so they could enter the United States illegally,” the statement reads.
“These defendants put several migrants on the boat that disappeared off the coast of Nicaragua in 2023,” said Deputy Attorney General Nicole M. Argentieri, head of the U.S. Department of Justice’s Criminal Division, as cited in the statement.
Both men are “directly and personally responsible for the illicit trafficking of migrants on that vessel,” according to the indictment dated October 23.
International
Homemade landmine explosion in Michoacán kills two soldiers, injures five
Two soldiers were killed and five others were injured by the explosion of homemade landmines planted by a criminal group in a mountainous area of the Mexican state of Michoacán (west), the Secretary of Defense reported on Tuesday.
The attack occurred on Monday morning in the municipality of Cotija, a border area between Michoacán and the state of Jalisco, when the military was conducting a reconnaissance mission after receiving information about an armed camp in the area, explained Secretary General Ricardo Trevilla.
“At that moment, an improvised explosive device detonated. Unfortunately, two soldiers lost their lives, and five others were injured,” the military leader detailed. The affected soldiers were airlifted to hospitals in the region by a military helicopter, while the rest of the team continued with the reconnaissance of the area.
Trevilla stated that before the explosion, the military unit had located the dismembered bodies of three people, and upon continuing the mission, they confirmed the camp was abandoned.
Asked about the individuals responsible for placing the explosives, the general suggested they could be criminals linked to the local group Cárteles Unidos, which operates in Michoacán and uses these tactics in their territorial dispute with the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, one of the most powerful criminal organizations in the country.
Austrian man arrested in Croatia with deceased woman as passenger in his car
Colombian nationals arrested for human trafficking and disappearance of migrant boat
Homemade landmine explosion in Michoacán kills two soldiers, injures five
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