The Diplomat
Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador will ask the Spanish authorities for the placet to appoint Quirino Ordaz Coppel, the outgoing governor of Sinaloa, as ambassador to Spain.
The announcement was made by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and confirmed by López Obrador, who described Ordaz, a member of the opposition Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), as “a professional and hard-working man”. Once he receives the Spanish government’s approval, his appointment must be ratified by the Mexican Senate.
Quirino Ordaz, who ends his term as governor of Sinaloa on 31 October, will replace Carmen Oñate Muñoz, who was appointed ambassador just over a year ago, after having been consul general of Argentina in Barcelona.
The Mexican Foreign Ministry indicated that “Oñate had communicated her decision to retire months ago” and expressed its appreciation “for her outstanding 42-year career in the diplomatic service”.
Quirino Ordaz, a former PRI and Green Party deputy, holds a law degree with a master’s degree in public administration and diplomas in Mexican ideas and institutions and process re-engineering applied to public administration. He has been an advisor to the government of the State of Mexico, deputy director in the Ministry of Energy, Mines and Parastatal Industry. He has also held positions in tourism agencies.
Yesterday, speaking about the election of the new ambassador to Spain, López Obrador recognised at an event in Sinaloa that relations with Madrid are not “as good as we would like”. “We asked the monarchy (to) apologise, but they felt offended,” he said.
With Spain “we have good relations, sometimes not as we would like, with misunderstandings, but I hope that good relations with Spain will be completely re-established, because I am an admirer of the Spanish people, a hard-working, honest, progressive people, a people I respect very much”, he added.
According to the Mexican leader, this re-establishment should be done “on the basis of mutual respect”. “They should not see us as the neoliberal governments acted, because they allowed them to do so. Let them not see us as a land of conquest”, he said.
