The favorite for Mexico's presidency said Saturday that she received hateful calls and messages after her phone number was revealed on social media.
This new matter comes two days after the Mexican president read out at a press conference the phone number of a journalist who was conducting an investigation into the alleged ties of the president's entourage to the drug trade.
“Today I keep getting calls and hate messages because someone published my cell phone number on social networks,” accused Claudia Sheinbaum, the ruling Left Party’s candidate for the June 2 presidential election, on the social network
“What they want to do is obvious, their attacks are once again as crude as they are harmless,” she added, indicating she would change her phone number.
A little earlier, José Ramón López Beltrán, one of the president's sons, had also denounced the sharing of his private number on the same social network.
During a tour of the state of Sinaloa (northwest), President Andrés Manuel López Obrador described the disclosure of his son's data as “shameful” and accused his political opponents of being behind it.
During his traditional press conference on Thursday, he read out the phone number of a New York Times journalist who had conducted an investigation into “possible links” between his entourage and the drug trade.
A Mexican data protection agency has opened an investigation to determine whether disclosing the number constitutes a “violation” of Mexican legislation on the subject.
According to the New York Times investigation, published in English and Spanish on Thursday, investigations by American officials enabled the discovery of “possible links between powerful cartel operators and officials and advisers” of the president.
The article claims that someone close to the head of state met Ismael Zambada, one of the bosses of the Sinaloa Cartel, before his election victory in 2018.
“The United States never opened an official investigation into Lopez Obrador, and the officials responsible for the investigation archived it,” specifies the New York Times.
In recent weeks, two other similar articles have been published in international media, based on anonymous American sources, which Mr. López Obrador attributes to an attempt to derail Ms. Sheinbaum's candidacy.
Ms. Sheinbaum, a former mayor of Mexico City, will run in the election against Xochitl Galvez, candidate from a coalition of three opposition parties, and Jorge Alvarez Máynez of the Citizens' Movement party (center-left).