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Leading Contender For Sonoran Governorship Defends Security Record, Shares Priorities

Mexico’s former Security Secretary Alfonso Durazo is a leading contender for governor in Sonora, Arizona’s neighbor to the south. He isn’t officially the candidate for his party Morena yet, but just got the unanimous backing of the party’s state committee.

At a Tuesday morning press conference, he shared his priorities for the job, and defended his security record.

“We will have to consider as a priority the retaking of the state,” Durazo said. “As (President Andrés Manuel López Obrador) has said, the separation of political power from economic power.”

Also like Lopez Obrador, he said his government would pursue a program of austerity, and avoid new taxes and debt, while combating what he described as entrenched corruption.

During his tenure as security secretary, new violence records were set nationwide, and murders rose sharply in Sonora. But he said federal security presence increased dramatically in the state, especially through the deployment of the National Guard, and that his administration would prioritize working with federal forces, better training state and local forces, and rooting out corruption in their ranks.

“What is required?” he asked. “Synchronizing the state effort with the federal effort.”

Murphy Woodhouse was a senior field correspondent at KJZZ from 2018 to 2023.