Mexico City, Jul 26.- The coordinator of the Mexican deputies of the former ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), René Juárez Cisneros, died after contracting covid-19, his colleagues reported on Monday.
“Today, with great sadness, we bid farewell to an exemplary politician, with convictions and a vocation of service like few others. Above all, a generous and unconditional colleague and friend. We are going to miss you, dear René,” the PRI senator and former Foreign Minister Claudia Ruiz Massieu.
Juárez Cisneros had been in serious condition since May after announcing his infection on April 21.
His death occurs in the middle of the third wave of covid-19 that Mexico is facing, which accumulates almost 2.75 million cases and more than 238,000 deaths, the fourth-highest figure in the world.
The coronavirus has shaken the Chamber of Deputies, which reported a total of 581 cases of covid-19 until March, of the 102 were legislators and 479 workers.
Juárez was president of the PRI, the former hegemonic party in Mexico, and governor of Guerrero, a state in the south of the country. His death shocked the political class and the cabinet of the president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, lamented his death.
“My deepest condolences to relatives and friends of René Juárez Cisneros, former governor of Guerrero and federal deputy, coordinator of the PRI parliamentary group in the Chamber of Deputies. I send a solidarity hug,” said Olga Sánchez Cordero, head of the Ministry of the Interior (Segob).
Tatiana Clouthier, the Secretary of Economy, and Marcelo Ebrard, Secretary of Foreign Relations, joined these wishes.
Contagions have been frequent in the political class of Mexico, where even the president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, was infected last January, as was the official in charge of managing the pandemic, the Undersecretary of Health Hugo López-Gatell, in February.
The disease had already caused the death of two deputies of the ruling alliance: Miguel Acundo of the Solidarity Encounter Party (PES) and Delfino López, of the National Regeneration Movement (Morena).
Two senators from Morena, Joel Molina and Radamés Salazar, also died of covid-19.
Likewise, almost 20 of the 32 governors have been infected, including the head of the Government of Mexico City, Claudia Sheinbaum.
The heads of the Ministry of Finance, Energy, Agriculture and Rural Development, Security, Public Function, and the Mexican Institute of Social Security (IMSS), among others, have also been infected.
Amelia Warner
Amelia Warner writes all the Latest Articles. She mostly covers Entertainment topics, but at times loves to write about movie reviews as well.
