Menchaca vs Sosa Castelán, fight for “the left” in Hidalgo

PACHUCA, Hgo. (apro).- The designation of candidates from the National Regeneration Movement (Morena) in Hidalgo left a break between two main internal groups: that of Governor Julio Menchaca Salazar and that of the brothers Gerardo and Óscar Damián Sosa Castelán, who, In addition to controlling a sector of local Morenoism, they govern the Labor Party (PT), on which they focused their applications to the Senate, as well as to local and federal deputies after being relegated.

The members of these political currents have exchanged accusations of imposition and possible corrupt acts to define candidacies, of usurping the name of the “fourth transformation” and of improperly financing campaigns with public resources, in addition to illicitly using institutions for political purposes.

The governor’s cadres accuse the Sosas of illegal use of the Autonomous University of the State of Hidalgo (UAEH), an institution they have controlled for four decades; while Óscar Damián, candidate for the Senate for the PT, and who seeks through amparos to avoid a possible arrest for embezzlement, affirms that Menchaca uses the Attorney General’s Office of the entity to threaten with processes, of which they say they are innocent. , against the star’s match contenders.

The struggle between Morena and the PT, to which is added the disagreement of a sector of the cherry militancy that claims that clans and figures from the PRI were favored in the nominations, which has generated an internal movement among the official party itself, was minimized by presidential candidate Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo, who called for “unity” and putting the project she heads first.

The most important thing is the project. Make a call to put it above everything,” the candidate said at a press conference in Pachuca, prior to a tour in Hidalgo territory that includes the municipalities of Actopan and Zempoala.

Although she refused to “go into more details” about the confrontation between two of the parties that make up the coalition that nominated her, when questioned about Damián Sosa’s accusations against Menchaca, Sheinbaum said she supported the governor, in addition to ensuring that the case was not has reached the national leadership of the PT and Morena.

“It’s so local that they don’t even talk about PRIAN, but rather about the PT with Morena. “I didn’t know the problem,” he stated.

Previously, the former head of Government of Mexico City denied the need for a scar operation, due to this dispute between groups and the disagreements in districts and municipalities over the selection of candidates, which include accusations against Senator César Cravioto, her operator in Hidalgo. , and the local leader of Morenoism, Marco Rico Mercado.

“Popular support for our project is enormous. All the militants, sympathizers, who wanted to participate in a candidacy and did not win the polls, there are always spaces for them in the state and federal government.

“There is unity here and there are some colleagues who perhaps did not win the polls and we have to talk to them, but it does not represent a risk,” he insisted, while highlighting that the dissent is from a minority and he attributed it to those who “don’t “They won the polls.”

“Maybe there is one person or another who did not feel integrated and you have to talk to them. The vast majority wants unity,” she reiterated.

Questioned by the media outlet of the Autonomous University of the State of Hidalgo, SUMATV, about the importance of the PT, headed by the Sosa family, for her coalition, Sheinbaum responded: “We are a coalition, at the federal level we go together. Of course Morena represents the party that has the most support from the people of Mexico. In some states, on the local side, the decision was made to go separately. We are united, there are always differences and they are a substantial part of democracy.”

In addition to the relegation of the University Group, also known by the name of La Sosa Nostra, of the Morenoist candidacies, founders of the party and former candidates accused the governor, César Cravioto and Marco Moreno of imposing profiles that, they affirmed, do not have political experience nor social roots. Among these they cited Jorge Alberto Reyes Hernández, Eduardo Medécigo Rubio and Zorayda Robles, former members of the state cabinet seeking the mayorships of Pachuca, Mineral de la Reforma and Apan. Also, they reproached the national leadership for favoring registrations of figures who previously fought the left from the PRI, such as Ricardo Crespo Arrollo, former state leader of the tricolor, now a candidate for federal deputy, and Cuauhtémoc Ochoa Fernández, formed in the political group of former governor Miguel Osorio Chong, and who heads the Senate ticket.

In the PT, meanwhile, two former rectors of the UAEH were registered, Adolfo Pontigo Loyola and Humberto Veras Godoy, the first for the local council for the district of Pachuca and the second for the capital’s mayor’s office. Both experienced the freezing of bank accounts ordered by the Financial Intelligence Unit (UIF) in 2019 for alleged money laundering, and accused that it was due to political persecution.
Pontigo’s substitute is Gerardo Sosa Martínez, nephew of Gerardo Sosa Castelán.

Other members of the University Group in the race are Osiris Leines Medécigo, who is seeking re-election in Congress, now as a candidate for legislator for Mineral de la Reforma; Salvador Sosa Arroyo, son of Damián Sosa Castelán, for district 11, of Tulancingo, as well as Jorge Mayorga Olvera and Noemí Zitle Rivas, both former Morenista deputies and now candidates for the mayoralties of Acatlán and Tepeji del Río, respectively.

Damián Sosa acknowledged campaigning for the Senate protected from possible arrest. A week before resigning as head of the State Attorney’s Office to also compete for a position in the upper house for Querétaro, Santiago Nieto Castillo stated that the brothers Gerardo and Óscar Damián were being investigated for embezzlement of 132 million pesos, through of the Autonomous Region of Hidalgo.

In the previous weeks, from the Chamber of Deputies and supported by the PT faction, Damián, trained in the PRI for which he was a local deputy, later a legislator for National Action and later a local leader of the Citizen Movement, sent a message to Menchaca, while suggesting the fabrication of cases against:

“We are not asking nor are we buying any concession, much less a candidacy. The only thing we ask is that they give us the opportunity to win as we plan to.”

Óscar Damián was also referred to in the case of organized crime and operations with resources of illicit origin for 58.2 million pesos that his brother Gerardo faces, who has been under house arrest since February 2022, after a previous stay of one year and five months in the Federal Center for Social Rehabilitation (Cefereso) No.1, the Altiplano. The mention is for being the main shareholder of a money dispersing company, Inmobiliaria Constructora y Arrendadora Yolo, which received transfers from the paper firm Contancia del Siglo XXI, which, in turn, improperly concentrated capital of the UAEH, according to the indictment of the Attorney General’s Office of the Republic (criminal case 263/2020).