[1/2]Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador attends a press conference at the National Palace in Mexico City, Mexico, June 5, 2023. REUTERS/Henry Romero/File Photo
MEXICO CITY, July 14 (Reuters) – Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador released a document on Friday that purported to reveal the business dealings of a leading opposition politician vying to succeed him this year coming, which led her to accuse him of abuse of power and threaten him. legal action
Reuters was unable to verify the authenticity of information that López Obrador posted on social media apparently about the financial accounts of two companies linked to Senator Xochitl Galvez or members of her family.
“You have broken a number of laws with this and therefore I will take legal action against you and whoever is responsible,” Gálvez said on Twitter after making the document public, without elaborating.
She also accused López Obrador of using “the entire apparatus of the State” against her.
Gálvez has been gaining ground in the race to be the main opposition candidate in the June 2024 presidential election to face the candidate representing López Obrador’s left-wing Moviment de Regeneració Nacional (MORENA).
López Obrador cannot run again because Mexican law restricts presidents to a single six-year term.
The president wrote on Twitter that he had “received” information that Gálvez had acquired contracts worth a specific amount since 2015, and attached a document that purported to show details of some of these deals for companies. He did not disclose where the information had come from, and the document did not fully detail the sum quoted.
A spokesman for the president did not respond to a request for comment.
Leftist López Obrador has presented himself as a defender of Mexico’s poor majority against a corrupt and wealthy elite, who he has said are seeking to make Gálvez their presidential candidate. Gálvez, who rejects this narrative, has said that his background is more humble than MORENA’s main contenders.
It is not the first time that López Obrador has published financial information about a political opponent. Last year, López Obrador published the alleged income of journalist Carlos Loret de Mola, a prominent critic of the president.
López Obrador touted the amount of business Galvez had allegedly won during a regular press conference last Friday, prompting Galvez to challenge him to back up his claims.
If he could, Galvez pledged to abandon his campaign.
“If not,” he said, “I should resign from the presidency.”
($1 = 16.7366 Mexican pesos)
Reporting by Kylie Madry Editing by Dave Graham and Will Dunham
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