A crowd accompanied AMLO’s steps towards the Zócalo

Nestor Jimenez, Roberto Garduno and Cesar Arellano

Newspaper La Jornada
Monday, November 28, 2022, p. 4

It took President Andrés Manuel López Obrador five hours and 35 minutes to walk the 3.9 kilometers that separate the Angel of Independence from the capital’s Zócalo. The slow march was due to the high influx that was registered in the mobilization called by the president himself, for which the Paseo de la Reforma and all the streets surrounding the first square of the city looked full.

On the fourth anniversary of the beginning of his government, the man from Tabasco arrived on time for the appointment and from that moment the complications began to move forward, due to thousands of people who incessantly sought to get closer to the President at any cost. The scene was repeated with each step he took: some wanted to take a picture of him with his cell phone, others carried documents with the intention of handing them over to him, others simply wanted to see him up close.

Dozens of governors, legislators and members of his cabinet rushed to find a place near him.

Among the first to arrive were the Head of Government, Claudia Sheinbaum; the Minister of the Interior, Adán Augusto López Hernández, and the Secretary of Foreign Relations, Marcelo Ebrard. The foreign minister and the president boasted on Twitter the meeting of the three candidates for the Presidency, but later they distanced themselves.

Sheinbaum and López Hernández followed the head of the federal Executive, but at times the crowd separated them.

Ebrard was the one who, of the three, took the lead in the journey by several meters. He was also one of those most identified by people thanks to his height, which generated cheers and shows of support, but his obvious presence also caused him a setback. In videos that circulated on social networks, the moment in which he perceives himself when something is thrown at him was captured.

discard the car

The crowd also made it difficult to identify the rest of the Morenistas who accompanied López Obrador. The constant jostling, caused by the effort to see him, made most of the officials give up following him and preferred to continue along other routes and wait for him in the Zócalo.

After three hours of walking and with barely half the route covered, at the intersection of Reforma with París street, in front of the Senate of the Republic, his team arranged the two white Jettas that the President usually uses in the city, to to leave the sea of ​​people and expedite their arrival at the Historic Center. He decided not to go up and continued his journey on foot for another two and a half hours.

The passage became even more complicated after passing the Palace of Fine Arts and entering the Madero walkway, which yesterday seemed more crowded than usual.

At 2:45 p.m. López Obrador reached the periphery of the Zócalo, but it took him more than half an hour to continue the last stretch. Even the Secretary of the Interior insistently asked on that point to open the way for him. He stood behind the president’s back to try to close the fence that the members of the Assistantship tried to make, with the purpose of lessening the complications of the march.

Visibly tired, López Obrador arrived at the stage in front of a Zócalo that was already full, despite the fact that the rear of the column was still advancing at that moment through Bucareli.

Thousands of people preferred not to enter the Zócalo and to see the speech on one of the screens set up for the World Cup, where the message was broadcast instead of the games.