Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador will appoint Father Alejandro Solalinde as human rights director if he wins election.

The front-runner in Mexico’s presidential election has said that if he wins on July 1, he will appoint an activist priest as his human rights director.

Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador told a gathering of victims of violence on May 8 that he would appoint to Father Alejandro Solalinde to the human rights position and name Catholic poet Javier Sicilia – whose son was kidnapped and killed in 2011 and later organised the families of those suffering atrocities – to form part of a commission for finding the thousands of disappeared people in Mexico.

Father Solalinde, who started a shelter in southern Oaxaca State for protecting Central American migrants traveling through Mexico, accepted the offer.
“Of course I will, because it’s for Mexico and provided it’s without a salary,” Father Solalin-de said. “I don’t need a salary. I’m a missionary. It would be an honour to serve Mexico in this manner.”