Sick with diabetes, Barbosa died at 63 years of age. Alonso was 45 years old, just a week before the crash of the helicopter where she was traveling with her husband Rafael Moreno Valle, who was governor of Puebla from 2011 to 2017.
Without concluding the six-year term
Prior to joining Morena, Governor Barbosa served 23 years in the PRD. He was president of the Senate of the Republic and, at some point, was even considered close to Moreno Valle, who went from the PRI to the PAN.
But friendships in politics are complex. In 2018, Barbosa and Alonso embarked on a bloody dispute for the governorship and in the July 1 elections there were reports of theft of ballots, votes from citizens without voter identification, vote buying and violence in the polling stations.
Both were disqualified and declared winners of the day; but the minimum difference in votes, of 1.55%, validated Alonso as the winner. Morena contested the results. Barbosa denounced fraud. But he did not get the victory until Martha Érika Alonso died and extraordinary elections were called in Puebla in 2019.
In the end, somehow, both won the governorship of Puebla and neither was able to complete the entire six-year term.
chiaroscuro
Since before she ruled for 10 days, Martha Érika Alonso was haunted by the shadow of morenovallismo. Her detractors claimed that her governorship was a “marital inheritance.” The doubt of electoral fraud and the allegations of corruption in her campaign also overshadowed her image.
