Push to Put Ex-Presidents on Trial/ Tomás Zerón Located in Israel

Letter to request trial for former presidents. President López Obrador said that if not enough signatures are collected on a petition related to holding a referendum on whether to put former presidents on trial for corruption then he will write a letter on the issue and send it to Senate. “I have already prepared a letter to request the referendum. The law gives me that authority and tomorrow I will decide on what to do if citizens do not collect enough signatures,” he said. López Obrador explained that so far, over 800,000 people have signed the petition, well short of the 1.6 million needed to formalize it. “We have to make it more flexible, so it does not require so many signatures,” he said. Since the start of his administration, López Obrador has said he is against persecuting former presidents but that a public consultation could decide the matter.

Tomás Zerón in Israel. President López Obrador said the former investigator on the infamous Ayotzinapa case, Tomas Zerón, has been located in Israel. “In the case of Mr. Zerón, he was in Canada but later it was reported that he is in Israel,” López Obrador said regarding the Interpol warrant against Zerón related to the investigation into the disappearance of 43 students from Ayotzinapa, Guerrero, in 2014 that has yet to be solved. On Sept. 26, an update from the new investigation is expected since “important advances” have been reported. López Obrador said a notification had been sent to the Israeli government highlighting that no political motives are behind the warrant. “Respectfully, the government of Israel could not provide protection to a person like him,” he said.

Iberdola offended Mexicans. President López Obrador said that he spoke with Iberdrola’s director and told him that Mexicans were offended when former President Felipe Calderón was appointed director of that company in 2016. “I just met with Iberdrola’s director and we had a conversation on very good terms. I told him that they offended us a lot when they appointed former President Felipe Calderón as director, that this was an offense to the Mexican people,” he said. López Obrador pointed out that although legal, the hiring was immoral. After saying several times that fraudulent contracts were signed with energy companies in past administrations, the president said he is open to reviewing all contracts granted to the Spanish energy firm.

Proposes canceling Braskem-Idesa contract. President López Obrador proposed to cancel the contract between PEMEX and Odebrecht’s subsidiary Braskem-Idesa because he says it is flawed since it implies that PEMEX has to buy the plant if a cancellation occurs. “I am proposing that this contract be canceled. An agreement can be reached with the company but certainly not on the terms they think it would be,” he said. The president highlighted that despite there being a signed contract, it is very easy to prove that the whole process was tainted from the start.

Presidential plane lottery achieved its goals. President López Obrador said the goal of selling tickets for the so-called presidential plane raffle has been met, so the lottery will go ahead on Sept. 15 at 4 p.m. He said that the medical equipment purchased with the funds will have a plaque with the legend “Resources obtained from the presidential plane raffle. Contribution of the people, 2020” and that a detailed and transparent report on which hospitals will received the equipment will be prepared. National Lottery (LOTENAL) head Ernesto Prieto reported that over 4.18 million tickets have been sold, equivalent to 69.65 percent of the total, raising almost MX$2.1 billion (US$900 million). Since last week and during the weekend, there were several reports on tickets being given away to unions and to public offices.

Jobs recovery moves forward. Almost 50,000 jobs have been recovered in September, President López Obrador said. “So far in September we have 49,463 new jobs and we are not even halfway through the month. If 90,000 jobs were created in August, and we already have almost 50,000 so far in September, these data show that we are recovering gradually. We have now had two months without job losses; on the contrary, we are recovering jobs,” he noted.

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Click HERE for full transcript in Spanish