Ayuso defends her stormy trip in the Madrid Assembly: “Mexico did not exist until the Spaniards arrived”

Isabel Díaz Ayuso’s trip to Mexico is taking on a mythical character. The discomfort it caused among Mexicans, her confrontations with Claudia Sheinbaum, and the last two days during which her whereabouts are unknown have filled a tour that was supposed to be protocol and not cause more fuss than cutting a ribbon at a library inauguration with mysteries. This has not been the case nor will it ever be with the president of Madrid, allergic to discretion, especially when accompanied by her main advisor, Miguel Ángel Rodríguez.

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“Mexico did not exist until the Spaniards arrived,” Ayuso said this Thursday in the plenary session of the Madrid Assembly, where she faced questions from the opposition. To prove that before everything was barbarism, she referred to the most important altar of the Aztec empire, the great Tzompantli, where 35 human skulls offered to the gods are stacked. “What is underground? Ask what Mexico’s past was before we united in mestizaje, which is what my Government has defended. It is the truth and the history of everyone. Ask Sheinbaum what is underneath and why she does not open it to the public. Because maybe we will have to start apologizing for so many lies and so much offense.”

About Sheinbaum, she said she was one of Pedro Sánchez’s “narco-friends,” accusing her of almost more crimes than Joaquín Guzmán Loera, El Chapo. She drew a criminal parallel between Sánchez and Sheinbaum: “They have the same things. A daily program called Mañanero, it is the same, they operate in the same way. To promote lawfare, to persecute judges, to harass the opponent, creating mafias to extort merchants, as they do on both sides and the friends of Bildu. As they do to persecute and extort businessmen,” Ayuso said. For her, there is no doubt that Mexico is a narco-state and that Spain is heading in that direction.

The president’s words responded to the questions from the PSOE spokesperson, Mar Espinar, who called her tour shameful. “Being patriotic is not erasing our past, it is accepting it with its lights and shadows, no one is ashamed of Spain, but we are ashamed of you,” Espinar said. Among the audience was a group of Mexicans to whom the socialist spokesperson thanked for the treatment their ancestors gave to the republicans in exile. “What politician takes 10 days off in the middle of the term to go to Mexico? I only know one: you, Mrs. Ayuso,” she asked the president.

Ayuso responded that if that is the argument, there are other PSOE politicians also “on vacation,” like Salvador Illa, who is in California but has also visited Mexico. “What is Mexico’s investment in Catalonia? Six million euros. And what is it in Madrid? 4,600, Your Honor.” Ayuso’s words were accompanied by laughter and applause from her bench.

Manuela Bergerot, spokesperson for Más Madrid, took the floor to tell her that on the trip “she wanted to humiliate Mexicans by vindicating a conqueror who annihilated all their ancestors”: “The only one humiliated was you.” Before ending her turn, she praised the Spanish Government’s hantavirus management and asked the president about Madrid’s healthcare.

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“We have the best healthcare system in Spain,” Ayuso repeated, “despite the strikes we are suffering because of your minister [Mónica García] who has sunk appointments.” Bergerot replied that “there has been a health crisis and your [Hospital Isabel] Zendal has been useless.” Ayuso closed that discussion with a phrase received by the left with shouts: “The Health Department has had to guide the Ministry at all times in many decisions.” Before, she wanted to belittle the minister, her possible rival at the polls next year, assuring that Más Madrid overacts so that “her boss has a little position at the WHO.”

Bergerot threw at Ayuso: “Coming from the beach, you look very angry.” There were also laughs among her party members. “Tell us, what risks did you run in Mexico if there are not even waves in the Caribbean?” In theory, the president was exposed to numerous dangers in a country that terrifies her: she described it as a place where you can be killed on any corner without mercy. EL PAÍS’s reconstruction of the tour doubts that she experienced extreme situations, although the lack of information makes it impossible to piece together the whole puzzle around the visit. Más Madrid and PSOE have been demanding for days that the Madrid government make public the expenses of the trip which, according to Ayuso, was an invitation from the local government of Aguascalientes and the Platino Awards, an event co-sponsored by the Community of Madrid with 450,000 euros.

The topic of the conquest raises many passions. The Mexican government has been requesting an apology from the Spanish Crown for years, which has not yet been given. Ayuso has shown herself opposed to offering apologies and on this trip vindicated the figure of the conqueror Hernán Cortés, which always generates much controversy in a nation with its past still under review. The left found it an outdated, patriotic, and old-fashioned discourse that only disrespected the people hosting her.

The president arrived at the Assembly from the esRadio studios, where she gave an interview to journalist Federico Jiménez Losantos. She spoke of Mexico as a lawless country “where something happens to you and no one takes responsibility.” “Mexico is already a narco-state,” which would have happened to Spain “if Podemos had governed.” Or what will happen if Sánchez remains in charge. Thus Mexico and Spain would finally be one nation.

Now, it is time to return to everyday life and local politics, matters further from the great events of History. Those in which it seems that, by trying hard enough, Ayuso will one day enter.

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