Mexico City’s mayor’s approval plummets after subway accident

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The approval of Mexico City’s head of government, Claudia Sheinbaum, plummeted 22 points after the subway line 12 accident that left 26 dead and more than 80 injured, according to a poll released on Wednesday.

According to the poll by El Financiero newspaper, citizen approval of Sheinbaum, one of the favorites to succeed Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, went from 71% in April to 49% in May, while disapproval rose from 26% in April to 49% in May.

Despite Sheinbaum’s plummeting popularity, 45% of respondents believe that the main responsible for the accident is Mexican Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard, the mayor of the capital when the subway line was inaugurated in 2012.

The tragedy occurred on the night of May 3, when a beam of an elevated bridge on line 12, between Olivos and Tezonco stations, in the southeast of the capital, gave way, causing a train with passengers to fall and become stranded in the shape of a “V”.

For many hours, relatives of the victims had to undertake a long pilgrimage through the ruins and hospitals in the area until they found their loved ones in the morgue of the Public Prosecutor’s Office.

Regarding the state of the subway, one of the busiest in the world with nearly five million users a day, 81% consider that maintenance is bad or terrible, and only 6% say it is good or excellent.

The so-called golden line was surrounded by controversy from the beginning since it cost more than expected. Its service had to be suspended between 2014 and 2015 due to numerous failures, and neighbors had reported damage to the structure after the 2017 earthquake.

After the tragedy, the mayor commissioned the Norwegian company DNV an investigation into the causes of the accident and the College of Civil Engineers of Mexico a thorough review of the state of line 12 and other subway lines.

According to a poll by Gabinete de Comunicación Estratégica, 82.7% of Mexicans believe that the subway tragedy was due to “negligence” on the part of the authorities.