Identify yourself!

Chavela Vargas, the irrascible cantina singer, and sometimes “iconic” Mexican… having been born not inn Mexico, once snarled “A Mexican can be born any fuckin’ place she wants”. Fair enough, but to be President, one has to be born here, and have at least one parent also born here. Which more than satisfies the requirements for the two most likely candidates, Xochitl Galvéz and Claudia Sheinbaum.

Well, OK, Sheinbaum is not OFFICIALLY the candidate for the Morena coalition yet… that is to be decided later this week, but all polls (https://www.as-coa.org/articles/poll-tracker-contenders-mexicos-2024-presidential-vote) point that way. And to an easy win for Sheinbaum.

BUT… with the elections ten months away, and anything can happen between now and then… Galvez – as candidate for the PAN-PRI-PRD (the old guard) coalition has been marketed with some success as the “authentic” Mexican.

Galvez, having indigenous heritage (specifically, Otomí), and the baggage of a past flirtation with Trotkism, is an unusual choice, given that her party, PAN, has been associated not just with the radical right, but close ties to European “identiy” parties, like Spain’s VOX. Sheinbaum, the socialist/leftist presumptive candidate, is from the intellectual elite (both her parents, as is she, are academics) and… besides not-Iberian European heritage (her father was born in Lithuania), is Jewish.

The election may come down to something we normally associate more with US politics: “identity”.

(More at Mexfiles (political) substack )