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Mexican president draws protesters, desperate pleas for help during visit to Tijuana

Mexico's President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador is confronted by protesters as he rides in presidential motorcade. (Ramon Hurtado/El Sol de Tijuana.)

TIJUANA (Border Report) — Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador finished his tour of Northern Baja California in the cities of Tijuana and in Rosarito, and tense protests followed him everywhere.

During a stop in Tijuana’s Colonia Leyba, protestors accused Lopez Obrador of being a traitor for siding with drug cartel interests instead of the public’s interest.


Others went up to his convoy, as it slowly made its way through the streets, screaming at him demanding his resignation.

AMLO’s convoy is stopped by protesters. (Ramon Hurtado/El Sol de Tijuana)

During one tense moment, one person slammed a flag and its staff on the windshield of the car carrying the president.

Lopez Obrador was in Tijuana to oversee the completion of a sports complex and to talk about how Mexico is supposedly changing for the better.

“Over the last two years we have shown that our formula of zero corruption and no impunity works,” he told the crowd.

AMLO’s waves at protesters. (Ramon Hurtado/El Sol de Tijuana)

Tijuana Mayor Arturo González Cruz accompanied the president.

“I thank him for including Tijuana in his plan to modernize our country’s urban core for the second consecutive year,” González Cruz said. “I wanted to thank him for his visit to our city.”

In the coastal town of Rosarito, about 20 minutes south of Tijuana, the president was greeted by about 200 protestors who showed up with various concerns and complaints.

Women with cancer and family members of missing persons also showed up at the city’s administration center to demand that he do more to find their loved ones or to provide cancer medications, such as chemotherapy drugs, which have been very hard to find since the pandemic began.

As the president’s convoy made its way, someone jumped on the hood of the president’s vehicle asking the president to deliver the medications.

Residents in Rosarito also demanded more street lighting, police officers and access to housing.

For more on President Lopez Obrador’s visit to Northern Baja California and Tijuana, visit El Sol de Tijuana.

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