{"id":121570,"date":"2021-05-06T11:44:50","date_gmt":"2021-05-06T03:44:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.namnewsnetwork.org\/?p=121570"},"modified":"2021-05-06T11:44:52","modified_gmt":"2021-05-06T03:44:52","slug":"mexico-president-hits-back-at-critics-over-metro-crash","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/?p=121570","title":{"rendered":"Mexico president hits back at critics over metro crash"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMy father\u2019s dead and nobody can bring him back,\u201d 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDon\u2019t go, son!\u201d his mother Marisol Tapia wailed as she clung to his coffin, on top of which stood a photo of the smiling schoolboy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Foreign governments offered condolences, including US President Joe Biden, who said his country was \u201cready to assist Mexico as it rebuilds from this tragedy.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As allegations of administrative mismanagement of the line mounted, Lopez Obrador rejected suggestions from employers\u2019 association Coparmex that the accident was linked to public spending cuts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe metro maintenance has a sufficient budget. It\u2019s authorized by Mexico City\u2019s legislative assembly. What does that have to do with austerity?\u201d the left-wing populist said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe workers are afraid, we have no guarantees,\u201d union leader Jesus Urban told the Milenio newspaper.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The fallout from the disaster has thrust two of Lopez Obrador\u2019s potential political heirs into the eye of a growing political storm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In his former position as Mexico City mayor, Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard oversaw the development and inauguration of the line involved in the crash.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Incumbent Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum meanwhile faces questions about whether the network has been adequately maintained.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Both of them are considered top contenders to be the candidate of Lopez Obrador\u2019s Morena party to run in the 2024 presidential elections.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The incident has reignited controversy over major overruns in the metro line\u2019s construction cost \u2014 which finally amounted to around $1.2 billion \u2014 and a string of structural problems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ebrard has said that his own administrative responsibility for the project ended in 2013.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He has promised to cooperate fully with the investigation into the accident, saying the accusations against him are politically motivated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The accident comes just a month before June 6 midterm legislative elections in which Lopez Obrador\u2019s party aims to retain control of the lower house of Congress.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":121573,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[208],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121570"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=121570"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121570\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/121573"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=121570"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=121570"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=121570"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}