Development: On 24 October, Mexican daily El Universal reported that Roy Campos, president of national pollster Consulta Mitofsky, said that the future of the project for a new international airport in Mexico City (NAIM) had become a question of partisanship.
Significance: Campos’ comments come as President-elect Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s government transition team is organising a nationwide public consultation on the future of the NAIM project. The NAIM project, launched under outgoing president Enrique Peña Nieto, has strong support from the private sector but is opposed by López Obrador, and many see the public consultation as a political move on López Obrador’s part, as he tries to make his mark ahead of taking office on 1 December.
- The president of the right-wing opposition Partido Acción Nacional (PAN) Marcelo Torres Cofiño has called upon PAN members to not take part in the public consultation, calling it anti-constitutional and saying that it should not be a basis for making decisions.
- The left-wing Partido de la Revolución Democrática (PRD) party has also said that it would abstain from voting in the public consultation, and interim party president Ángel Ávila called upon party members to do the same. “It’s a consultation for Morena [López Obrador’s Movimiento Regeneración Nacional party] activists to vote according to the presidential instructions they’ve been given,” Ávila reportedly said, accusing López Obrador of behaving as if he were still campaigning and unnecessarily dividing Mexicans.
- A PRD deputy, Reyes Carmona, assured that Morena deputies would try to push the vote against the NAIM project and in favour instead of the Santa Lucía project, which would involve building two new runways at an existing military airbase near Mexico City. Carmona says he has proof of this after a Morena deputy mistakenly approached him and discussed the contents of a Morena meeting about the vote.
- López Obrador’s designated communications & transport minister, Javier Jiménez Espriú, presented yesterday a technical report which backed López Obrador and Morena’s position, saying that the proposed plan of building new runways at the Santa Lucía airbase while expanding the capacity of Mexico City’s existing airport was viable.
- The report was produced by NavBlue, an Airbus-owned company that specialises in air traffic management, based on information provided by Grupo Riobóo. Grupo Riobóo is a Mexican engineering conglomerate that was not contracted for the NAIM project and with whom López Obrador has personal links. This has given ammunition to those who think that López Obrador might have a personal stake, beyond his political reputation, in the cancellation of the NAIM project.
Looking Ahead: The results of the public consultation, which López Obrador has promised to respect, should be known on 28 October.
