Mexico’s President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador issued a decree Thursday designating some of his flagship public works of national security and public interest, escalating a conflict with the country’s Supreme Court.
AMLO, as the president is known, said in the decree that the construction, maintenance and operation of certain projects —the Maya Train, the Interoceanic Corridor and airports in Chiapas and Quintana Roo— are matters of national security and public interest. The decree represents an act of defiance against a ruling by the top court just hours earlier, which declared as unconstitutional a previous government attempt to give public works this key status.
The Thursday court decision was backed by eight of 11 justices. In an explanation of his vote against giving the government projects the designation, Supreme Court Justice Juan Luis Gonzalez Alcantara said that giving such a status to these works could be used as an excuse to hide information, affecting access to public information, El Financiero reported.
“Designating a project as having national security interest doesn’t mean information will be held back,” AMLO said on Friday during his daily morning press conference, adding that the government needs to protect these projects to promote growth in the southeast of the country.
Read More: AMLO Blasts Supreme Court Rejection of Mexico Election Reform
AMLO has had several public disagreements with the court, which on May 8 annulled his attempt to reform part of the electoral process on grounds that the proper legislative steps hadn’t been followed by lawmakers. That decision upset the president, who called it an “act of arrogance and authoritarianism” by the court.
--With assistance from Leda Alvim.
(Updates with AMLO quote in fourth paragraph)
