Socialist Activist From Mexico on Elections, Trump, and More

FEATURING FAUSTO REYES AND HECTOR AGREDANO – Mexicans will go to the polls in three weeks to pick their nation’s president. The latest poll shows a wide lead for left-leaning candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, former mayor of Mexico City and Presidential candidate in 2006. More than 40% of those polled said they would pick Obrador with his main rival trailing at about 21%.

But violence mars the July 1st election with the fatal shooting death of Fernando Purón last Friday. Purón was a Congressional candidate in the Mexican border city of Piedras Negras and became the 112th politician killed in Mexico since last fall.

The elections come at a time of heightened tensions between the US and Mexico. In addition to his provocative rhetoric on the border wall, US President Donald Trump announced stiff tariffs on Mexican imports to the US.

Fausto Reyes, socialist member of the Revolutionary Worker’s Party of Mexico (PRT) and a founding member of the Mexican chapter of Science for the People; Hector Agredano, Professor of Geography at Pasadena City College, writes on Mexican politics for Socialist Worker, and organized Reyes’ speaking tour.