President Andrés Manuel López Obrador commented on the start of the 2023-2024 school year for more than 24 million pupils and over 1.2 million teachers. The morning press conference featured a televised hookup with several governors for the symbolic start of classes. In states such as Mexico City, Durango, Guerrero, Michoacán, Baja California, Quintana Roo, and Tamaulipas, students are guaranteed access to the new free textbooks that offer a humanistic, scientific, multicultural, and inclusive education.
Minister of Public Education Leticia Ramírez reported that 95.6 million textbooks were distributed to students in 26 states. Due to court orders, they could not be distributed in Chihuahua and Coahuila, given that the governors of those states filed a constitutional challenge with the SCJN. In Aguascalientes, Guanajuato, Querétaro and Yucatán the textbooks were also not distributed, due to a decision by their respective governors.
In response to the position of the Archdiocese of Guadalajara, which described President López Obrador’s statements in the morning press conferences as witticisms and ironies, the head of the Executive Branch said he respects everyone’s opinion, since liberties are guaranteed, but reiterated that he is guided by the view expressed by Pope Francis, who has not offered his opinion on Mexican politics, since he is currently working in favor of justice and the poorest strata of society, as has never before been the case.
President López Obrador emphasized that the 2024 elections will be a kind of plebiscite in which Mexicans will decide whether or not they want the transformation of the country to continue. He insisted that that the judicial branch must be renewed and the best way to do so is for the people to elect Supreme Court justices and judges.
The head of the Executive Branch revealed that Ricardo Márquez Blaz, former collaborator of Genaro García Luna, hired by the presiding Supreme Court Chief Justice Norma Piña as new coordinator of Institutional Strengthening of the SCJN, will earn more than 122,000 per month (US$7,290). “That’s more than I earn,” the President explained.
