(Bloomberg) — It’s Spanish
A train derailment in southern Mexico that killed 13 and injured dozens is putting President Claudia Sheinbaum on a new test to hold her government accountable.
Sunday’s accident hit the main railway line, which was being renovated and operated by the navy as part of a government initiative to increase freight and passenger traffic. Both were pet projects of former President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, Sheinbaum’s predecessor and mentor.
Sheinbaum told reporters Monday that caring for the victims was her top priority, while pledging to investigate what caused the deadly derailment. He also plans to travel to the area to visit survivors, with 44 still hospitalized.
“We have to do a rigorous analysis of what happened,” she said Monday at her regular morning news conference.
A video posted on social media immediately after the derailment showed overturned cars as well as part of the train hanging on the mountain bend.
The incident involves the Navy, which operates the Isthmus Tehuantepec interoceanic train connecting Mexico’s Pacific and Gulf coasts. The freight and passenger rail line is one of the flagship projects of Sheinbaum’s Morena party, which is supposed to stimulate economic development in the poorer south of the country.
López Obrador, known as AMLO, pushed for it in an effort to lure some freight companies away from the Panama Canal as well.
Navy and transportation officials said the 250-passenger train derailed in the Oaxaca municipality of Asunción Ixtaltepec. AMLO tasked the Navy with the construction and subsequent operation of a redesigned rail project, built on an existing route, part of a greatly expanded mandate for the military that also includes the operation of ports, airports, as well as a separate tourist rail project known as the Maya Train.
Sheinbaum ordered the railroad agency and the attorney general’s office to work together to investigate the derailment.
Sunday’s accident is just the latest setback for the navy, which is also under fire over allegations of corruption in a wide-ranging fuel-smuggling scandal.
In recent months, Sheinbaum has been trying to crack down on smuggling rackets and recover vast quantities of smuggled gasoline and diesel. A senior navy admiral was arrested in the ongoing investigation, while its former attorney general was ousted last month.
He was replaced by Attorney General Ernestina Godoy, a longtime Sheinbaum confidant who is now in charge of the investigation.
Completing the train projects started by AMLO as well as building new lines has been one of Sheinbaum’s top infrastructure priorities, while she aims to gradually reduce the gaping budget deficit she inherited from him. Nine new rail projects will have a budget of 105 billion pesos ($1.3 billion) next year, while the Interoceanic project will receive around 25 billion pesos for its operation.
In addition to providing ammunition to her political opposition, the fatal accident also puts Sheinbaum in an awkward position vis-à-vis the AMLO family. One of the former president’s sons, Gonzalo López Beltrán, was tapped by his father to become an informal adviser to the Interoceanic rail project, despite having no experience in train transportation.
“Gonzalo is not involved in politics. He helped as an honorary adviser on the Interoceanic project, but he is not getting paid and he is not going to work in the government,” AMLO said in 2024, shortly before leaving office.
AMLO’s other son, Andrés López Beltrán, is the leader of the No. 3 Moreno party. Local media reports have accused him of helping friends win contracts for railway projects, but he has denied the allegations.
The derailment in Oaxaca is not the first fatal rail accident Morena has followed. When Sheinbaum was mayor of Mexico City in 2021, an elevated section of the capital’s subway system collapsed when a train passed over it. The incident left two dozen dead and nearly 100 injured, with an investigation later blaming faulty welding as well as inadequate inspections and maintenance.
The subway disaster intensified scrutiny of public infrastructure during Sheinbaum’s mayoralty. Opposition parties, including the conservative National Action Party, or PAN, blamed the collapse on corruption and negligence, pointing to cost overruns, construction defects and poor maintenance. At the time, they also criticized Marcel Ebrardo, another former mayor of the capital who currently serves as its economy minister.
Piling on, head of another opposition party, the centrist Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, pointed to an audio recording released last year by investigative news agency Latinus in which AMLO’s nephew is heard talking about the possibility of derailing the Maya Train in the rush to his inauguration.
In a post on social media, PRI President Alejandro Moreno blamed the latest rail tragedy on “corruption covered up by Moreno”.
“It is clear what will happen when Morena’s criminal corruption reigns: the people of Mexico will pay with their lives,” Moreno wrote.
(Update with context and comments from the Leader of the Opposition beginning in paragraph fourteen. The previous version corrected the spelling of the president’s name in paragraph six.)
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