What this will mean for American in the long-run, should she actually win, remains to be seen.
But, given current tensions, it could end up being a very big factor in how President Trump conducts relations with Mexico.
Reuters reports:
Former Mexican first lady Margarita Zavala, a leading contender to become president herself, said on Friday she was breaking with her party, deepening divisions in the opposition ahead of the 2018 presidential election.
Zavala, wife of former President Felipe Calderon, announced her decision to leave the center-right National Action Party (PAN) in a recorded video broadcast in which she attacked the party leadership for blocking her aspirations.
Since launching her bid for the presidency in June 2015, Zavala has spent months as one of the top contenders in opinion polls, generally just behind former Mexico City Mayor Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, a veteran leftist with nationalist leanings.
Earlier this year, Zavala penned an op-ed for the Washington Post attacking Trump’s planned border wall as “offensive” and nothing more than a stunt to win votes.
According to Zavala, there is no immigration problem.
She wrote:
When the American president can undo with a tweet what has taken us decades to build, Mexicans have to wonder whether the United States is a reliable partner and what the future of our relationship will look like.
President Trump insists on framing U.S.-Mexico relations in simplistic and disrespectful terms. In his view, it is a zero-sum game, with Mexicans “taking advantage” of their northern neighbors. He fixates on the border and talks about Mexico as if it were a war zone, a threat from which the United States needs to wall itself off. Yet despite the sensationalist picture he paints, the U.S.-Mexico border has never been more secure.
Net Mexican migration to the U.S. is negative, and not a single terrorist act has been committed in the United States by someone who crossed the Mexican border.
As a historical ally, we have worked with both our southern and northern neighbors to ensure border security. The notion that criminals are streaming across the U.S. border is a fallacy put forth to win votes. Trump’s order to build a wall is offensive: a ludicrous solution to a nonproblem.
Make not mistake, if Zavala wins Mexico’s upcoming election, and her latest maneuver just might pave the way to victory, Trump’s proposed border wall will be put even further out of reach.
(via: Conservative Post)