The van in which Omar García Harfuch campaigns for the Mexico City government is a mobile fortress. It has level seven armor suitable for military operations and anti-terrorism and is impenetrable to Barret rifle ammunition. And inside the vehicle are short and long weapons, arranged to be within easy reach. There are also heavy shields and other tactical equipment. In addition to the trained driver, there are several security guards on board. Harfuch (Morelos, 41 years old) asks not to say how many weapons are in the vehicle, “so as not to give you ideas.” To whom? To those who want to hurt him again. It has been three years since he was the target of an attack by the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG). Two of his guards died, in addition to a woman hit in battle. He suffered some wounds from which he has since healed. Now both the weapons and the men who look after them were provided by the capital’s security secretariat and not by the attack, as a benefit to which the former heads of that agency are entitled.
Harfuch, who was chief of the capital’s police under Claudia Sheinbaum for almost four years, now wants to become Morena’s candidate to govern one of the most complex cities in the world. There are tissues, creams and hairspray on a seat in his truck. There’s also a Batman stuffed toy that was given to him, along with a gun. His image consultants wanted to emphasize a certain similarity between the former civil servant and the invincible comic book superhero. A problematic comparison. Although the masked character of Gotham City is a crime survivor with a tremendous sense of justice, in a critical reading he is also a vigilante who puts himself above the law and often goes free.
– Do you consider yourself Batman?
-Hopefully! – says Harfuch with a laugh on board his shell –. Batman is a person who can do anything, he doesn’t need a team. And I, all my successes, my career, which I consider successful, I owe to my team.
Due to the thickness of the shielding, external noises are dampened. But as the door opens, reality rushes in, the noise of the election campaign in all its glory. Two rallies are planned for this Friday in Harfuch with the workers’ unions of the Mexico City government, one in the office of the mayor of Gustavo A. Madero and another in Venustiano Carranza. The former officer eats a mint before leaving the truck. Without any armor – although there is a small group of guards hot on his heels – he gives himself over to his sympathizers, especially women, who would like to take a selfie, hug him, give him a kiss on the cheek. “Let him undress!” they shout to him. “Father!”. The former police chief smiles modestly, accepts compliments, is accommodating and allows himself to be loved.
It takes a while before he reaches the stage, where the leaders of the union sections are waiting for him. He thanks the hundreds of workers for being there and accompanying him in his fight for Morena’s candidacy. Employees, from office workers to sweepers to cemetery workers, used a day off their jobs to attend the rally. Will they pull the day? Not at all. Union leaders will justify their absence from work. In the election campaign, everyone is betting on something and doing politics. Harfuch offers the assistants a salary increase so that they can retire with a better pension. To do this, we must support him in the poll with which the party will define the capital’s candidacy. Harfuch reads a few pages and improvises little. The speech is very short, the applause soon comes, the streamers. What follows is leaving the stage to go back to the hugs, the kisses, the photos, everything that doesn’t need words.
—What is it like to campaign after the attack? Why do you think something like this couldn’t happen again at a rally with all those people?
“I don’t take it for granted that something like this won’t happen again.” First of all, it’s important to me that the people who accompany us are doing well. “That’s why there are sometimes delays at events because we ask the authorities to help us take care of the people,” says Harfuch on the way to one of the rallies. But when I stop working, when I say, “I’m not going to get involved in the internal process.” [de Morena] because it’s dangerous, something could happen to me, it’s better for me to stay here” … everything we’ve been working on for many years, all the crimes that exist in the city and that need to be stopped … that would be very cowardly of me saying, “Boy, don’t do that because they can kill me.” I don’t see the point in stopping something out of fear. In other words, whatever you give up because of fear, I feel like you need to eliminate it immediately or move on to something else.
Omar García Harfuch upon his arrival at the Deportivo Lázaro Cárdenas in the office of the mayor of Venustiano Carranza. Nayeli Cruz
You can see a calmness in his posture, in his speech. In most polls he is in first place within Morena, with a comfortable lead over his closest rival, the former mayor of Iztapalapa Clara Brugada, and even further away from Hugo López-Gatell, the federal czar against the Covid pandemic. The high likelihood of Harfuch becoming the left-wing candidate to govern the city has sparked an internal rebellion in President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s party. Several Morena heavyweights have begun undermining Harfuch’s aspirations and promoting Brugada, a politician with a long history of activism for the Obradorist cause.
Two weeks ago, the former mayor gathered a group of intellectuals, journalists and influencers in a house in Polanco, an affluent neighborhood in the west of the capital. Brugada told them about his suggestions. The people who talked the most during dinner were the other participants. An analyst called on his colleagues to “balance” the media coverage of the candidates because he claimed that Harfuch had bought a lot of rooms, an invited person told this medium. Another participant said the Left was at a crucial point in its history and faced the dilemma of appointing a police officer to govern the capital. Harfuch’s critics not only consider him an outsider, but also criticize him precisely because of his police training.
– I believe that no one has the precise manual or the passport to say: “You are left, you are not” – defends the former security minister –. President López Obrador himself has said that being left means serving others, fighting for social justice and caring for the most vulnerable, and I have been doing that for many years. It’s not like I started serving my country after Morena’s internal trial began. I have been working for many years for the very principles that guide the left and the goals that the left wants.
—What do you think of the criticism of your police profile?
“I’ve heard and read that they say ‘policeman Omar’ in a derogatory way, as if that insults me. It is my greatest pride! I joined the police with thousands of young people because we wanted to serve, and the police gave me that opportunity. In all the places I’ve been [en la campaña]there wasn’t a single person who said to me: “Hey Omar, you are a police officer.” On the contrary, people say: “We don’t care if you are a police officer, a doctor or a businessman, just come and solve it.” .” And the police know how to do it, we know how to solve it.
“But it is also an institution with a huge perception of corruption.”
“Yes, corruption, and I would add repression, abuse of office, torture,” admits the candidate. Of course, there have been abuses throughout our country’s history, but let us remember that they were ordered by politicians, and most importantly, the police did not act alone.
The former civil servant defends his management at the head of a group with 80,000 members; It examines the decline in several crime indicators, confirms that there have been isolated cases of internal corruption and assures that the protest was never suppressed. “There were never any arrests [en manifestaciones]” says. “Any act of oppression is reprehensible, and we have never behaved this way during Dr. Sheinbaum’s entire term in office.”
—It seems that some left-wing voters are not comfortable with the figure of the police. It’s a contradiction that has to be dealt with.
“We have to change this perception.” And if I had the opportunity to change this perception, that people, the most radical leftists, are joining the police and the army… Well, look who is the main left-wing leader on the planet, dare I say? President. And he is the first to join the Mexican army! I think the contradiction would be the other way around. In other words, the president is the first to embrace the army, the first to put his trust in it. And of course, throughout this country’s history, the army has also been involved in terrible cases ordered by truly reprehensible people.
A group of participants at the Harfuch rally at Deportivo 18 de Marzo, in Gustavo A. Madero.Nayeli Cruz
Harfuch addressed a sensitive topic. His critics often mention two of his ancestors, figures undeniably associated with the history of the worst state repression during the PRI era. His paternal grandfather, General Marcelino García Barragán, was defense minister for Gustavo Díaz Ordaz, the president who ordered the repression and murder of students in Tlatelolco on October 2, 1968 (police and military took part in the confrontation). His father – and son of the general – Javier García Paniagua, was head of the shadowy Federal Security Directorate (DFS), the PRI’s political police, and was involved in the disappearances and torture of dissidents of the PRI regime, a tragic event known as the War. dirty.
—Looking back, do you have any criticism of the roles of your grandfather and father?
“I have always (and not just now, I always have) been critical of every kind of human rights violation, of every kind of abuse of authority,” agrees Harfuch. It would be very unfair to me to single out one person in an entire regime… What I can tell you is that I strongly condemn repression and any violation of human rights. But not only do I disapprove of it, we have constantly fought it in the police department. Unfortunately, just as I tell you about the great progress in security, more than 300 colleagues are imprisoned for serious crimes: extortion, kidnapping, murder, abuse of office, torture, drug trafficking.
—Should one bear the guilt of one’s ancestors?
“It seems really absurd to me,” he says.
The candidate pauses to take a drink of water shortly after arriving at one of the campaign events. His guards travel in silence in the van. These are men you trust. One of them has been working with Harfuch since he joined the federal police in 2008 (another line in his story that his critics do not forgive him for). The journalist Anabel Hernández has assured that Harfuch rose in the PF – now transformed into the National Guard – thanks to the help of Luis Cárdenas Palomino, right-hand man of Genaro García Luna, both prisoners, the first in Mexico, the second in the United States, for serious crimes, from torture to drug trafficking. The journalistic investigation also contains certificates indicating that Harfuch did not pass the trust checks within the group.
And where was the aspiring candidate when the 43 normalists of Ayotzinapa were massacred in September 2014? Harfuch was chief of the federal police in Guerrero and was appointed commissioner of the gendarmerie in Michoacán at that time. However, two different reports – one from the CNDH and another from the presidential commission investigating the disappearance of the 43 – place him in Guerrero during the days of the massacre and also shortly afterwards, when new investigations say the murder began, the historical truth, the official version about the alleged reasons for the attack on the students and the aim of denying the involvement of state institutions in the crime.
Harfuch is prepared for these questions, which he believes come up again and again in the political cycle. The proof, he explains, is that they had already confronted him with the same thing when Sheinbaum appointed him security minister in October 2019. “These are really things that I understand in an internal process, and when you accept a new position… Because it’s not the first time it’s come out, the same thing that’s coming out now is the same thing has already come out before.”
Regarding the self-confidence tests, he assures that he has not failed them: “I have passed them repeatedly for many years and many times in my career.” He also questions the legitimacy of the papers revealed by Anabel Hernández: “There is no evidence for the exams. I am completely unaware of the published documents; These documents are completely confidential. “If I hadn’t passed a trust test, I wouldn’t be able to be a secretary.”
Omar García Harfuch travels in his armored truck.Nayeli Cruz
—If you passed the exams, why don’t you present them as proof?
– They only give you the result “approved” or “not approved”. “There is nothing more,” he assures us.
– And why not show that?
– Because they don’t give it to the element. They notify you. And you can ask any company.
Regarding the Ayotzinapa case, he says that the two official meetings he attended on October 7 and 8, 2014 were aimed at coordinating the search for the missing youths. “I was never involved in the investigation of the case. When you are assigned an investigation, there is an assignment and an assignment. They called us from Michoacán to physically search for the young people with force and violence,” he explains. And he again denies (he has done so in the past) that inventing a story was discussed, at least in the meetings he attended. “I can’t imagine attending a meeting where something so sensitive is discussed with more than a dozen people. I have never participated in the construction of a historical truth or in any invention of this kind. I would never do that in my life, I have never done it, and I will be criticized again,” he claims.
Harfuch abandons the moderate tone and claims that one is the natural fate of the conflict and the other accuses him of being complicit in such a serious event. “This is more painful. Being criticized is not the same as being falsely implicated in the most tragic case that has occurred in our country,” he emphasizes.
The capital’s former police chief says he is not discouraged by the friendly fire within Morena and assures he will not encourage any internal rift. “We have to focus on unity, I will never be a factor of division,” he says.
– For the sake of this unity, would you step aside and make way for one of the other candidates?
“If someone else wins the poll, yes,” he says. Or if the INE decides that the candidate must be a woman, I will abide by the law. You take off.
At night his supporters gather at the Monument to the Revolution in his honor. He’s not present, but they project the Bat Signal onto the walls of three buildings, the glowing cry for help to Batman, so that the vigilante, the lone hero, the masked man working on his own appears. In the middle of the projected sign it says: #EsHarfuch.
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