The Mexican journalist Elena Chávez considers that the attacks she has received from the ruling party MORENA for her book “El Rey del Cash”, which denounces a network of corruption in the intimate circle of Andrés Manuel López Obrador, are because the book somehow “hurts” the president and his party.
The author, who for 18 years was within the group that promoted López Obrador, responds in an interview to criticism from politicians and commentators related to the Government, who accuse her of writing her controversial text without evidence of her.
“It is a testimony and a testimony is a proof, that is, why do you think they have not denied me? Because they have not come out to say that it is a lie, none of them have, the president himself got on the subject because it hurt him,” declares the writer.
Days after it was published, the president questioned that “it has been the most talked about book in the conventional information media” and that “no writer has been so interviewed” as Chávez has.
Analysts and officials who support the government have accused the journalist of “spite” for her divorce in 2015 from César Yáñez, an official close to López Obrador who is now Undersecretary for Democratic Development in the Ministry of the Interior.
Chávez replies that spite “does not exist in her dictionary” and that “the president knows that what she exposes is true.”
“That way of discrediting a woman’s work also has to do with my gender, sadly that’s the way it is, that is, they can’t attack you in another way because they don’t have the arguments,” she says.
THE DENOUNCEMENT OF “THE KING OF CASH”
The journalist wrote, “El Rey del Cash” (Grijalbo, 2022) based on the 18 years she spent close to López Obrador as a couple of Yáñez, his press officer at the time.
The text reveals an alleged illicit financing network in which the political leader’s operators obtained cash for their electoral aspirations.
“I can describe it that way because he used cash to run his presidential campaigns because cash has no way of being traced, it leaves no trace, cash cannot be taxed, so it was to create that illicit scheme,” she details.
The work mentions high-profile politicians, such as Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard and the head of the Government of Mexico City, Claudia Sheinbaum, both considered possible successors to López Obrador.
The writer claims that the work behind the book “didn’t happen overnight”, but is based on facts that she saw and wrote in small notes that she kept.
“The president of the republic will never find a document signed by him or a video because that is why he had his operators. A president is a cunning man,” she warns.
Chávez points out that “they have used words to attack, to dismiss and discredit a book that has been uncomfortable and annoying.”
“What I did was tell, only, to the Mexicans: let’s see, Mexicans and Mexicans, this was the scheme that the president used to make money. Everyone wondered what he lived on, how he did it, well there it is”, underlines.
THE MOTIVATION OF ELENA CHÁVEZ
What motivated Chávez to write “The King of Cash” were “the lies” of the president and the situation in Mexico, which, in his opinion, is “dying” and “bloody” by violence.
“Yes, it was a very difficult decision, but I had to do it because my conscience dictated it to me if I had a testimony that can serve to open the conscience of Mexicans so that they see who is governing us, it was important to do it,” he highlights.
The writer asks the population to “read with reflection” her text and she believes that it provides “clues so that they can see the crimes that were committed and that, perhaps, have not prescribed yet.”
For now, she believes that the book’s success, which “exceeded expectations,” is due to “the country going bad.”
“This means the degree of tiredness, of being fed up, in which we Mexicans are already with this government. Success is not because I wrote it, I am a simple and common citizen, like all those who are in this country, simply I dared to give my testimony,” he reflects.
Source: Excelsior
