MEXICO CITY, May 6 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador on Wednesday rejected any link between his austerity drive and a metro line disaster that left 25 dead, as devastated families began to bury the victims.
The tragedy that struck on Monday night, when a section of elevated track collapsed in the capital and brought a train full of passengers crashing down, has left the country in shock and mourning.
“My father’s dead and nobody can bring him back,” 31-year-old Luis Adrian Hernandez said, as the first funerals were held for the people who lost their lives, including a 12-year-old boy, Brandon Giovanny.
“Don’t go, son!” his mother Marisol Tapia wailed as she clung to his coffin, on top of which stood a photo of the smiling schoolboy.
Foreign governments offered condolences, including US President Joe Biden, who said his country was “ready to assist Mexico as it rebuilds from this tragedy.”
As allegations of administrative mismanagement of the line mounted, Lopez Obrador rejected suggestions from employers’ association Coparmex that the accident was linked to public spending cuts.
“The metro maintenance has a sufficient budget. It’s authorized by Mexico City’s legislative assembly. What does that have to do with austerity?” the left-wing populist said.
The authorities have also come under fire from one of the metro labor unions, which said that its earlier warning about damage to the overpass that collapsed was ignored.
“The workers are afraid, we have no guarantees,” union leader Jesus Urban told the Milenio newspaper.
The fallout from the disaster has thrust two of Lopez Obrador’s potential political heirs into the eye of a growing political storm.
In his former position as Mexico City mayor, Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard oversaw the development and inauguration of the line involved in the crash.
Incumbent Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum meanwhile faces questions about whether the network has been adequately maintained.
Both of them are considered top contenders to be the candidate of Lopez Obrador’s Morena party to run in the 2024 presidential elections.
The incident has reignited controversy over major overruns in the metro line’s construction cost — which finally amounted to around $1.2 billion — and a string of structural problems.
Ebrard has said that his own administrative responsibility for the project ended in 2013.
He has promised to cooperate fully with the investigation into the accident, saying the accusations against him are politically motivated.
The accident comes just a month before June 6 midterm legislative elections in which Lopez Obrador’s party aims to retain control of the lower house of Congress.
Experts said, however, that Lopez Obrador and his party seemed unlikely to suffer a major setback in the short term thanks to his approval rating of more than 60 percent. — NNN-AGENCIES