Morena Taps Gino Segura as Quintana Roo Governor Candidate

Mexico City — Morena has named Senator Eugenio “Gino” Segura Vázquez as its coordinator in Quintana Roo, positioning the 32-year-old as the ruling party’s candidate to succeed Governor Mara Lezama in 2027.

Citlalli Hernández, who chairs Morena’s National Elections Commission, announced the decision on Tuesday at an event attended by every rival who had sought the post: Rafael Marín Mollinedo, former head of Mexico’s National Customs Agency and a founder of Morena in the state; federal deputies Marybel Villegas and Ana Patricia Peralta; and Green Party legislator Alexa Munguía.

All of them closed ranks behind the young senator, who served as finance secretary in Lezama’s administration and is widely seen as the governor’s protégé. Lezama won the internal battle, securing the nomination for a figure she helped shape.

The Green Party’s national leadership endorsed Segura. As happened a day earlier with Morena’s picks in Guerrero and Michoacán, however, the national leadership of the Labor Party (PT) chose not to attend.

With only about 10 years in politics, Segura defeated the far more experienced Marín Mollinedo, whose supporters made up the majority at the hotel where the nomination was announced. Some of them shouted “fraud” when Hernández said Segura had won the party’s polling.

Marín Mollinedo ran the customs agency from December 2022, appointed by then-President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, until March 2026, when he resigned to seek the nomination. His name has been linked to the “huachicol fiscal” scandal, an alleged fuel-tax fraud scheme that has touched several Morena leaders, former officials and officials still in office.

On Tuesday, Marín Mollinedo denied that the scandal had driven him out of the 2027 race and insisted he is clean.

“No one can call me a fuel thief, when I was the one who reported all of it,” he told reporters after conceding defeat.

He said Segura beat him because the senator began building a presence in the state in 2025, while he started only six months ago. Asked whether he had been shown the polls, he replied: “Yes, of course — and I came in third place?”

The other contenders also accepted the outcome of the internal process with resignation, even though Morena’s national leadership — led by Ariadna Montiel — again declined to publish the results of the surveys conducted by the party and by the private firms that ran parallel polls.

The practice has stirred discontent inside Morena, most notably from former Acapulco Mayor Abelina López, who on Monday objected to the designation of Senator Beatriz Mojica Morga as the party’s coordinator in Guerrero.

In Quintana Roo, the new coordinator achieved a unanimous show of unity despite a final stretch marked by leaked information and social media attacks. Segura rejected the suggestion that his nomination rested solely on the governor’s support and, in his first remarks, emphasized his place in the movement founded by López Obrador.

“Defending the transformation means defending the first floor of the project founded by López Obrador; it means defending social programs and the work of President Claudia Sheinbaum, the best president in the world,” he said.

Segura faces questions not only about his limited political experience but also about controversies stemming from his closeness to Lezama. The newspaper Reforma recently disclosed the governor’s use of private flights, a practice at odds with the austerity that Morena preaches. Among those who accompanied her on those trips was the senator now set to run as the ruling party’s candidate to succeed her.