But is he really a Mexican?
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Juan Camilo Mouriño was named Mexico’s interior secretary this week, a position that is the second-most powerful in the country. In his first press conference Wednesday afternoon, he was forced to address the most uncomfortably personal question now facing Mexico’s political class: Is Mouriño really Mexican?
The constitution requires that all Cabinet officers and all legislators be Mexicans by birth. Both Mouriño’s parents were born in Spain, as was he. But Mouriño says his mother is a Mexican citizen, and he was thus a Mexican citizen at birth.
On Wednesday he released two documents that back up his claim: a citizenship certificate issued by Mexico’s Foreign Ministry and a birth certificate issued by Mexican consular officials in 1979 (eight years after Mouriño was born in Madrid).
The issue remains unsettled and is likely to resurface if, as many observers here suspect, President Felipe Calderon is grooming Mouriño as a possible successor. Reforma columnist Miguel Angel Granados Chapa in a column today (subscription required) called Mouriño an ‘illegal secretary’ and says it’s possible that his mother wasn’t a Mexican citizen when her son was born.
-- Hector Tobar in Mexico City
