Claudia Sheinbaum does accept “recommendations”

MEXICO CITY (El Universal).— After President Andrés Manuel López Obrador promoted Zoé Robledo, Alejandro Svarch and Ruy López Ridaura to continue in their positions, the virtual president-elect, Claudia Sheinbaum, said that recommendations are always taken into account, but that she will make the appointments later.

“Recommendations are always taken into account, of course, and it will also be time to appoint all the colleagues from the Health Department,” he said at a press conference at his campaign headquarters.

López Obrador said on Tuesday that the director of the Mexican Social Security Institute (IMSS), Zoé Robledo; the undersecretary of Prevention and Health Promotion, Ruy López Ridaura; and Alejandro Svarch, head of the Federal Commission for the Protection against Sanitary Risks (Cofepris) are “the best” to continue the so-called fourth transformation.

In this regard, she was questioned about whether the president had made other recommendations for officials to continue in their positions, and the virtual president-elect did not deny it.

“Always, in meetings, always, and it is normal, one says, this person has worked well, and I know them, I know all the colleagues in the president’s cabinet,” said Claudia, who has been said to have a six-year term in the shadow of Andrés Manuel, a situation that both have flatly denied on various occasions.

Asked whether the officials who have joined her cabinet will have the freedom to choose their team, the virtual president-elect said that they will have to discuss it with her, “there are many people who have supported us, who have been there, who have the profiles. So we always talk with the secretaries.”

Claudia assured that the national project will take into account various profiles, because “they are not isolated people.”

“We have to talk together, it is not just… this is a project, it is not isolated people. Of course, the head of the secretariat has to coordinate with his team, but this is a project in which we all participate, it is not isolated secretariats that each define their project,” he stressed.

Claudia will name other cabinet members today at the Interactive Museum of Economics. The Ministry of Culture, Tourism and Labor and the Ministry of Employment Promotion are expected to be announced.

With a social focus

The virtual president-elect reconfirmed that her government will be “feminist” and also have a “social” focus.

“It cannot be that the first female president is only a symbol,” said the future president.

Claudia also noted that she will seek to have Article 4 of the Constitution rewritten “in terms of substantive equality and non-discrimination,” and pointed out the urgency of “bringing the issue of violence against women to a constitutional level.”