The new controversy of Adam Auguste: filling the Senate with “greatness”

The accounts do not work and Adán Augusto López once again finds himself involved in a new controversy. In recent days, Senate offices have received hundreds of boxes of books. More precisely, 17,000 copies of Sizethe recently published latest book by former President Andrés Manuel López Obrador. This is a sort of early Christmas gift from the leader of the Morenista gang to his 67 companions. The opposition senators, in addition to finding themselves without a gift, launched into criticism of a purchase which, taking into account that the sale price of the book is 448 pesos, would amount to almost 8 million pesos. López’s response followed the pattern of his latest controversies, which have placed him in the eye of the hurricane since the summer. Between ambiguity and boasting, the powerful senator declared that he had bought them with his own money, and not at the expense of the public budget, but he did not specify the exact amount or the recipients.

When asked specifically if he paid for them out of his own pocket, López replied: “Well, we make the effort. I have the foresight that with my savings this year… some are giving wines, ties, cheeses. I prefer to give them books.” The tone is reminiscent of the explanations he gave at the end of September, when a journalistic investigation indicated that between 2023 and 2024, the former governor of Tabasco had received 80 million pesos that he had not presented in his declaration of assets before parliament. The controversy even led President Claudia Sheinbaum to publicly ask López to explain himself. López turned to the family fortune, including his father’s inheritance, as well as his own work as a notary. “They hire me, modesty aside, because I am the most successful notary in the history of Tabasco, without offending my fellow notaries.”

In this new controversy, the senator said he did not remember exactly the amount of the purchase but said he had negotiated “a special price with the publisher (Planeta), because one thing is the production price and another thing is the price, let’s say, to the bookseller.” And he added that they cost “about a hundred pesos each.” With the new accounts, a total sum of 1.7 million pesos would come out. In principle, the objective is for each senator to deliver a handful of books in each of their states to supporters of the Fourth Transformation. But the matter became even more complex since some senates declared that it was they who had purchased the books. For example, Eugenio Segura, a legislator from Quintana Roo, claimed to have purchased 10 boxes containing 200 books at 600 pesos each, even above the 448 pesos at public sale.

Adan Augusto, as he is better known, is a party heavyweight. A personal friend of the former president and his right-hand man as Interior Secretary, López became a presidential candidate. After failing in the primaries and with Sheinbaum’s final victory, he occupied the influential position of head of the Morenist judiciary in the Senate. An experienced and seasoned political operator, some of his moves during this first term caused friction within the ruling party. On occasion, she has defended a different agenda from that of the president, who needs the support of his parliamentary partners to carry out major reforms.

The internal controversies and accusations began during Morena’s primaries, when his competitors accused him of receiving millions of pesos, for promotion and advertising purposes, from private companies, which he had not mentioned in his declaration of assets. Since this summer, problems have been piling up for the man whom former President López Obrador considers “a compatriot, a friend and a dear companion”.

The arrest of his police chief, Hernán Bermudez, during his brief tenure in Tabasco sparked a wave of accusations that he appointed as security secretary someone who ran the state police with one hand and, with the other, a local cell of the Jalisco Nueva Generación cartel, one of the most powerful mafias in the country. Later, the important public works contracts obtained by his friends, the multimillion-dollar payments to individuals when he was a civil servant or the inconsistencies in his asset declaration were revealed.

For months, the cataract of controversies seemed like it might eventually erode the veteran operator, even to the point of a resignation or agreed departure. But the wind calmed down, Adan Augusto continued to exercise his functions at the start of the new legislative year and his figure was essential, for example, to unblock one of the most important institutional movements so far during this sexennium. The unprecedented resignation of Alejandro Gertz Manero from the Office of the Attorney General of the Republic cannot be understood without the operation involving several gangs of the leader of the Morenist party.