On 10 November Mexico’s President Andrés Manuel López Obrador defended his choice of Pablo Gómez Álvarez as the new head of the government’s financial intelligence unit (UIF).
Analysis:
A federal deputy for the ruling left-wing Movimiento Regeneración Nacional (Morena), Gómez was appointed earlier this week to replace Santiago Nieto, who was forced to resign following fierce criticism over an extravagant wedding which took place in Guatemala. His appointment has been rejected by some opposition figures who complain that he lacks the technical profile for the role and could use the post to attack opponents. These concerns come as the government continues to face complaints of politicising justice.
- In his morning press conference López Obrador said that Gómez “had integrity, was honest and incorruptible”.
- An economist and professor at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (Unam), Gómez is a seasoned politician; a member of the 1968 student movement, he briefly served as president (1999) of the centre-left Partido de la Revolución Democrática (PRD), Lopez Obrador’s former party, as well as a PRD legislator.
- Lopez Obrador was defending him in response to complaints from figures such as Jorge Triana, deputy coordinator of the right-wing opposition Partido Acción Nacional (PAN) in the chamber of deputies, who told national daily Reforma that Gómez has been “vengeful” in his previous posts and lacks the technical profile to head up the UIF.
- The government is facing renewed pressure over claims of selective justice. Jailed former social development minister Rosario Robles (2015-2018) repeated these complaints in an interview with Mexico City radio station, Imagen Radio, broadcast yesterday. The first former government minister to be arrested over corruption charges under the López Obrador administration in 2019, Robles has repeatedly complained that she is the victim of a political vendetta. She cites the differential treatment that her case received compared with that of figures like Emilio Lozoya, the former CEO of the state-owned oil firm (Pemex), who was only placed under preventative detention last week, having previously been allowed to face trial without detention.
Looking Ahead: Some are hopeful that Gomez’s appointment could prove beneficial in terms of a better working relationship with federal attorney general Alejandro Gertz who reportedly had frosty relations with Nieto at times, for example over complaints that the former UIF had failed to provide sufficient evidence in relation to particular cases.