Mexico’s López Obrador appoints Tabasco’s governor as federal Interior Secretary

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador appointed this Thursday the governor of Tabasco, Adán Augusto López, as the new Secretary of the Interior, replacing Olga Sánchez Cordero, who left the post to rejoin the Senate.

“My friend, fellow countryman and dear companion, Adán Augusto López Hernández, after requesting his license as governor of Tabasco, will be the new Secretary of the Interior,” announced the president, originally from Tabasco, in the southeast of Mexico, on Twitter.

Minutes earlier, it appeared that Sánchez Cordero, a key government figure and the most progressive voice in the cabinet, would leave the office to return to the Senate seat she won in 2018.

In a video together with the two involved, López Obrador said he appointed Sánchez Cordero three years ago so that for the first time there would be a woman at the head of the Interior Ministry, but affirmed that her “dream” is to be in the Senate and thanked her very much for having been “loyal”.

“What can I say about her public trajectory? She is one of the best there can be. An exemplary woman, with integrity, honesty, principles, and ideals,” praised the President.

For her part, Sánchez Cordero expressed her “deep gratitude” to the President, assured that she has learned “a lot” in the “intense times” at the head of the Secretariat and considered it a “privilege” to have worked for “a man of true integrity, honest, good, of social justice”.

Adán Augusto López, for his part, thanked for the assignment, for which he will dedicate all his “effort and time”, and announced that this very Thursday, he will ask the Congress of Tabasco for a leave of absence from his position as governor.

Since January 2019, López was governor of Tabasco, López Obrador’s homeland, and had to deal with the floods caused by Cyclone Eta last year, which left eight dead in the state.

Sánchez Cordero, 74 years old and a prestigious former Supreme Court judge, was considered one of the most progressive voices in the government and is now emerging as a possible president of the Senate.

The lawyer leaves the cabinet without succeeding in pushing her agenda for the legalization of abortion throughout the country, the decriminalization of marijuana, or a kinder treatment of migrants.

Sánchez Cordero’s replacement is the third in López Obrador’s cabinet after last June’s mid-term elections. The ruling Morena party won in the Chamber of Deputies but did not achieve a qualified majority.

On June 9, the president announced the departure of Finance Secretary Arturo Herrera to become governor of the Bank of Mexico. On June 21, he dismissed Public Function Secretary Irma Eréndira Sandoval, in charge of the fight against corruption.