Americas Quarterly | What a Comedian’s Poll Performance Says About Mexican Politics
/Eugenio Derbez rode to comedic stardom at the helm of a sitcom set in a make-believe city where people don brightly colored plush outfits. Now, scoring 19% in a September poll for Mexico’s 2024 presidential race, he has outperformed all contenders from the country’s traditional opposition parties, the PRI, PAN and PRD—even though he’s not officially a candidate.
Though his appearance in the survey might seem like make-believe, pollsters gave good reason to include the actor, who left the sitcom world behind a decade ago in favor of Hollywood blockbusters like CODA (2021) and The Valet (2022). One is name recognition—but another, as poll organizers from major media outlet Reforma put it is “his participation in topics of public debate.”
Derbez landed at the center of political controversy a few months back as the most well-known celebrity to join a campaign against the Tren Maya, an $8 billion, signature infrastructure project of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s government that involves building a train circuit through the jungles and over the underground water cave system of Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula. The participants in the campaign, dubbed “Sélvame del Tren” (a play on words in Spanish to say “Save me from the train”), sought to stop a portion of the construction known as Section 5, which connects the tourist hotspots of Cancún and Tulum. They argued that, without appropriate studies or consultations with local residents, environmental and archaeological destruction will occur.
López Obrador, or AMLO, responded by calling the celebrities conservatives and fifis (snobs)—two of his preferred labels for his critics. Still, he invited the participants to the National Palace for an April dialogue about Section 5, which has been embroiled in a series of legal battles. The campaigners pressured to hold the meeting at the construction site instead to bring attention to environmental damage, but accepted the invitation in the capital. Then AMLO called off the meeting last minute, saying many of the famosos canceled. But it appears only one did so: Derbez. He released a video in which he was on set, saying that, out of roughly 70 participants, only he could not attend because he was under contract and filming on location.
In other words, he was doing his job—being an entertainer. And yet the actor, who has declared no intention of running for any form of political office and has made it pointedly clear that he is busy with his movie career, featured near the top of a poll to be the country’s next president…
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