How street dancers made the mayor of a Mexico City neighborhood bend
— From Mexico
A year ago, Sandra Cuevas led the way in Mexico. Mayor of Cuauhtémoc, an emblematic district in the historic heart of the Mexican capital, she had earned a reputation as a fierce defender of order, the antithesis of conciliatory politics. of the head of state, Andrés Manuel López Obradorsays “AMLO”: “Abrazos, no balazos” (“Hugs, not shootings”).
In police uniform, with a procession of employees from her town hall, Sandra Cuevas led quad patrols in her district to dismantle terraces installed without a permit during the pandemic. Hammers crashed, chainsaws roared, and residents, many of them, applauded. Finally, they said to themselves, their municipality enforces the law, to the letter and without mercy. On the other hand, many of Sandra Cuevas’ opponents were beginning to worry about her rise, and some saw her as a threat to Mexican democracy.
A street ball every Sunday
Certainly, she had made more than one person bristle by ordering the food stands to give up their colorful hand-painted signs, in favor of the sad gray logo of the district town hall. But most of the traders obeyed. This is because we had little desire to rub shoulders with the powerful councilor from the opposition coalition.
And then, in February 2023, she takes on a very poorly chosen adversary: a group of amateur dancers of a certain age. She claims to chase them from the square where they have been gathering for years to dance, she goes too far and loses one of the most cherished public squares in the heart of her district. The episode demonstrated, if it was still necessary, that in Mexican political life occupying the streets counts as much as holding official power – and the facts continue to pursue Cuevas, who is now seeking national office.
The main square of the Santa María la Ribera district, like many others
