Higinio Martínez joins the race for the presidency of the Senate

Andrea Becerril

Newspaper La Jornada
Saturday, August 27, 2022, p. eleven

The dispute within the Morena bench for the presidency of the Senate has a new ingredient: the inclusion of Higinio Martínez, who aspires to be a unit candidate, which could be decisive, since none of the other candidates (José Narro and Alejandro Armenta) have achieved consensus and are objected to by the opposition.

In an interview, Senator Martínez commented that he does not belong to any group and has cordial relations with all the members of his caucus, including opponents. He rejected that the possibility of presiding over the Senate is a kind of consolation prize for not having won the candidacy for the government of the state of Mexico.

I am from Mexico: I was born there, I have made my political life there, my militancy has always been from the left, I have fought in the past two years to be Morena’s candidate and there is nothing that can compensate for that aspiration to be governor of my entity.

He added that he accepts the results of the internal selection, and I am in the best disposition to support the teacher Delfina Gómez and to get fully involved in my legislative responsibility.

-Do you have the support of President López Obrador to reach the board of directors of the Senate?

-The President of the Republic, with whom I have had a relationship for 27 years, has never intervened in the election of whoever heads the Senate. Since 2018, when the legislature began, it is the Morena senators who have made the decision, and it will be this way on this occasion as well.

Martínez commented that some colleagues raised the possibility of running for the presidency of the Senate, especially because those who in recent months have expressed their desire to hold the position, and they have done a good jobThey have not reached a consensus.

He clarified that he will formally present his candidacy at the Morena plenary meeting next Tuesday, only if he has the support and sympathy of the majority of his colleagues. I don’t want it to come to a vote, I’m not going to become a source of discord, on the contrary: I want to achieve unity. If I help in something, go ahead.

He insisted: I am going to say it very carefully: I want to leave the decision exclusively in the parliamentary group and that external factors that today move a lot within the party itself do not intervene.