Mexico – Vicente Fox’s racist comments against opponents by former president Vicente 

Mexico city – Former Mexican President Vicente Fox (2000-2006) aroused accusations of racism this Friday after he posted comments on his Twitter account about the origin of the candidates of the ruling National Regeneration Movement (Morena) for the presidency.

“Sheinbaum is a Bulgarian Jew, Ebrard fifí (sifrino) is French, Noroña is an extraterrestrial and Adán Augusto is from Transylvania. The only Mexican is Xóchitl!”, could be read in a photo that was uploaded to social networks.

Twitter users accused him of anti-Semitism and xenophobia, which has led the former president of the now opposition National Action Party (PAN) to delete the post.

Regarding the former head of government of Mexico City, Claudia Sheinbaum, she referred to the Bulgarian origin of her maternal grandparents, who were also Sephardic Jews.

Referring to former Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard, he could be referring to the French origin of his grandparents.

When referring to former Secretary of the Interior Adán Augusto López and Gerardo Fernández Noroña, a deputy with a license from the Labor Party (PT), Fox sought to make a humorous reference, since neither one comes from Transylvania nor is the other an extraterrestrial.

“Don’t get mad at Vicente Fox: with his attitude he helps us even without realizing it,” López replied on his Twitter account.

The four ruling party candidates for the presidency mentioned by Fox are, precisely, the best positioned in the polls, while he did not allude to the former leader of Morena in the Senate, Ricardo Monreal, and the senator with a license from the Green Ecologist Party of Mexico (PVEM) Manuel Velasco.

The controversial message from the former president ends with a message of support for the main candidate to represent the opposition coalition Va por México in the June 2024 elections, Xóchitl Gálvez.

“For the good of Xóchitl, the opposition and Mexico, please take away Vicente Fox’s cell phone and don’t let him leave the house until the elections are over,” said Jorge Garcés, national political adviser to the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), also a member of the opposition coalition, on Twitter.

“Very worrying that opponents claim to Fox that their comments ‘do not help.’ For them the problem is anti-Semitic and xenophobic sincerity, not that this is their thought. In a few words, they suggest you think about it but not say it,” the president of Morena in the capital, Sebastián Ramírez, replied on the same social network.