By MND Staff | Mexico News Daily | AUG. 16, 2023 | Photo by Mario Jasso
The Broad Front for Mexico (FAM) opposition bloc has trimmed its field of potential presidential candidates from four to three, eliminating former tourism minister Enrique de la Madrid.
The organizing committee of the FAM – made up of the National Action Party (PAN), the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) and the Democratic Revolution Party (PRD) – announced Tuesday that Xóchitl Gálvez, Beatriz Paredes and Santiago Creel fared best in polling and will thus pass to the third stage of the alliance’s candidate selection process.
PAN Senator Gálvez attracted the support of 38.3% of 6,000 poll respondents, while PRI Senator Beatriz Paredes had the backing of 26%.
Creel, who has taken leave as a federal deputy to focus on becoming the FAM’s presidential candidate, was supported by 20.1% of those polled.
De la Madrid, who served as tourism minister in the second half of the 2012-18 government led by former president Enrique Peña Nieto, congratulated the three remaining aspirants in a social media post and said he was convinced that a “much better Mexico is possible.”
He, Gálvez, Paredes and Creel were the only FAM aspirants who met the requirements to reach the second stage of the opposition bloc’s candidate selection process, which lasted less than a week.
The FAM organizing committee said in a statement Tuesday that 3,000 people were polled in person at their homes and 3,000 other people responded to telephone surveys between August 11 and 14 to gauge support for the four presidential hopefuls.
It noted that the first of five regional forums in which the three remaining aspirants will participate will take place in Durango city this Thursday at 8 p.m.
