The Diplomat
Mexico’s new ambassador to Spain, Quirino Ordaz, arrived in Madrid yesterday to head the diplomatic representation, seven months after being nominated by the Mexican president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, and after his appointment was ratified by the Senate of the Latin American country.
According to the Mexican Embassy on its Twitter account, Quirino Ordaz arrives in Spain “with the mandate of the President, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, and the Mexican Senate to deepen and strengthen relations between the two nations”.
The text is accompanied by a photo of Ordaz at the door of the embassy, which had been without an ambassador since the previous ambassador, Carmen Oñate, left the post in August last year due to retirement.
The reference to López Obrador’s mandate to deepen and strengthen bilateral relations comes two months after the Mexican president proposed a “pause” in relations with Spain to turn the page on a period in which, in his opinion, Spanish authorities and companies took advantage of his country.
López Obrador, who has just won the backing of his followers against the recall of his presidential mandate called for by the opposition, provoked with these words a new crisis in relations with Spain, which he tried to redirect by sending the Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, to Mexico City.
The Mexican president’s words caused surprise and unease in Spain because they came days after the government had granted the go-ahead to appoint Quirino Ordaz as ambassador to Madrid. The decision by Pedro Sánchez’s government had taken longer than is normal between two countries with such close ties, in a sign of Spanish anger at López Obrador’s continuous verbal attacks on Spain, demanding forgiveness for the conquest five centuries ago.
The appointment of the former governor of Sinaloa, Quirino Ordaz, as ambassador to Madrid, announced by López Obrador in September last year, was surrounded by controversy not only on a bilateral level, but also domestically, due to his membership of the opposition Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI). After his appointment as ambassador to Spain was confirmed, Ordaz was expelled from the PRI.
