Mexico’s president backs Trump in face of criminal charges

MEXICO CITY

Mexico’s president sided Wednesday with former US President Donald Trump following his arraignment in a Manhattan courtroom, dismissing the charges against him as political persecution.

Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who shared a brief but courteous relationship with Trump during his first two years as Mexico’s president, suggesting the charges were politically motivated to hurt Trump’s 2024 election prospects.

“I reiterate and maintain my position that legal matters, supposedly legal matters, should not be used for electoral political purposes. That is why I do not agree with what they are doing to him,” he said.

According to Lopez Obrador, Trump's case mirrors his own experience in early 2000, when the federal government tried to indict him during his time as mayor of Mexico City over a dispute regarding a construction project.

At the time, Lopez Obrador was planning to run for president in the 2006 elections, but the allegations and political trial would hamper his attempts to become a presidential candidate.

In the end, the accusations were dropped, and Lopez Obrador managed to run as a candidate although maintaining that the allegations against him were an attempt by the opposition to prevent him from running for president.

However, Lopez Obrador not only compared his case to Trump's but also to that of ousted Peruvian President Pedro Castillo, who was impeached and arrested in December last year.

From the start, Lopez Obrador has called Castillo's impeachment undemocratic and a political move enacted by Peru's political and economic elite.

"Look at what they did to Pedro Castillo in Peru, what they did to me here. They disqualified me because they did not want me to appear on the ballot as a candidate for the presidency. That was the bottom line," he said.