My people and my moral authority, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said on October 3, are my protective shield “They can take what they want, cash, anything,” he said, referring to a book that will start selling next week, “I just don’t get involved in personal, sentimental matters; That doesn’t belong to me.” Written by the journalist and writer Elena Chavezwho was married 18 years to Cesar Yanez, inseparable shadow and squire of the current president in all that time, the book is titled “The King of Cash” (Ed. Grijalbo), and it is not about settling personal accounts, but it is a testimony documented about dishonesty who has done otherwise, a moral flag.
In the presentation of the 290-page book, which contains 26 chapters and annexes, the author advances that “it shows how power has been the president’s great love and obsession, and how hatred and resentment have been the food that sustains him” . Although this is a generalized perception about López Obrador, the added value is that it is analyzed by a person who knew him with Yáñez in the most intimate of his joys, frustrations and annoyances, who can describe, as he does, “a story full of political betrayals, personal ambitions, infidelities, labor abuses, corruption and authoritarianism.”
The personal in López Obrador’s case is political, and the theme of the book is corruption and dishonesty in his inner circle, which is the only thing that hits him below the waterline. So far Corruption shells around him have dodged them with short-lived damage. What happens after the book’s revelations will depend on how the wave of outrage grows and how, through their digital legions, they downplay the blow and turn the conversation around.
Until now, after Amazon’s marketing strategy in announcing the pre-sale of the book that unleashed versions of attempts by the National Palace to prevent his departure -which the author denies has happened-, which underlines the interest and morbidity, the president has minimized the work. We’ll see his reaction, because Chavez makes him look bad.
An important chapter places it at number 64 on San Luis Potosí street, in the Roma neighborhood of Mexico City, for a long time López Obrador’s alternate office, which was also his headquarters during presidential campaigns, such as the one in 2006, when after requesting a license as ruler of the then Federal District, every Monday at five in the afternoon – the author says that the number 5 is cabalistic for him -, capital authorities lined up to render accounts to him, despite the fact that whoever ruled at that time It was Alejandro Encinas.
The one who received them, recalls Chávez, was Alejandro Esquer, since then the man of all confidences of all the private matters of López Obrador, and of whom he is today private secretary. Esquer received each official from the capital who arrived with a copy of the organizational chart and structure of his office, and based on the number of employees on the payroll, he told them the quota they had to pay him monthly. The author says that in order to reach the amounts of the electoral tax -this definition is personal, not Chavez’s-, officials were forced to impose a “voluntary moche”, which was institutionalized by the then senior official of the central government, Octavio Romero Oropeza, current director of Pemex, of 10%, and that was extended as a subsidy to López Obrador for the entire six-year term of Marcelo Ebrard, and a part of that of Miguel Ángel Mancera.
In exchange for the money for López Obrador, they were allowed to see the “candidate”, who congratulated them on their good performance. It was a boomerang, according to what the book points out, because those who had the most money were appointed by López Obrador as operators in the states, to build electoral structures, but with money from his pocket. This produced a probable diversion of resources and embezzlement in the capital government, because it embezzled several secretaries, since the budget they had assigned went, in part, to López Obrador.
Even so, Chávez points out, the money was not enough for López Obrador, so phantom payrolls were created with non-existent personnel within the capital government, and they generated social programs that never really existed, such as a scholarship program in the Legislative Assembly of the Mexico City in 2011 of 250 million scholarships, of which only 5% were awarded.
The cash, the cash, which gives meaning and direction to the title of the book, was delivered to Esquer in bags and briefcases, in his office just across from López Obrador’s, who was informed who and how much he had brought. The resources were transferred to the Fundación Honestidad Valiente, which was managed by the electoral operator of López Obrador and today a senator, Gabriel García Hernández.
The opacity of the Foundation and the dishonesty of López Obrador was addressed in this space in 2016, but the federal authorities at the time pardoned the Tabascan and his team, which, according to the investigations, were alleged crimes of fraud, abuse of trust and handling resources of illicit origin. For less, the López Obrador government has initiated cases of organized crime and money laundering against critics and opponents.
The book narrates this type of episode, such as one with Guadalupe Acosta Naranjo, at the time one of the PRD leaders, who brought him a check for 300 million pesos from the prerogatives of the party of the then Federal Electoral Institute, for his second campaign. presidential. As confirmed by Chávez, López Obrador spent 150 million pesos on the campaign and no one knew what he did with the remaining 150 million.
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For years, López Obrador has been questioned that most of his public life has lacked employment. The fiscal explanations of him do not give. Now, Elena Chávez sheds light on the origin of his opaque income.
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