Residents Protest Governor Over Chronic Power Outages in Playa del Carmen

Playa del Carmen, Quintana Roo — Residents from at least five residential developments confronted Governor Mara Lezama at her “Voice of the People” event Wednesday morning, demanding a permanent solution to the recurring power outages that have disrupted daily and economic life in parts of this coastal city.

Holding signs, the demonstrators gathered at the second park of the Villas del Sol development, where the governor was holding the public audience. Lezama spoke briefly with them before they met with Cristina Torres Gómez, the state’s interior secretary, and Héctor Aguilar, peninsular manager of the Federal Electricity Commission (CFE).

During the meeting, a resident read a letter addressed to the governor, asking her to intervene with the federal government and CFE to find an effective and urgent solution.

“We demand your intervention as state authority, to act as an intermediary with the federal government and CFE to achieve an effective and urgent solution,” the letter read.

The resident said the outages have affected hundreds of families and endangered people whose medical treatments depend on electricity. He also asked authorities to stop approving new private construction projects in the city’s northwest until CFE expands electrical infrastructure there.

The hardest-hit areas include Villas del Sol, Misión de Las Flores, Sisal, Xcacel, Almazara, Palmas I, Paseos del Parque and the Ejido Norte neighborhood, he said.

Aguilar acknowledged CFE cannot resolve the blackouts “from one day to the next.” He said construction of a new substation will begin soon, and another one will come online in four months at the La Guadalupana development. Both will help improve service in the area, he said.

He described the solution as medium-term and asked residents for patience. He urged them to conserve energy and stop vandalizing electrical infrastructure, which he said was making the outages more frequent.

At the end of the exchange, authorities and residents agreed to hold working meetings every 15 days to track progress and inform the public about CFE’s actions. The first meeting is scheduled for Aug. 31 at a location still to be determined.

Aguilar also said CFE would suspend power from 3 to 4 p.m. in the Paseos Sisal area for maintenance, part of immediate efforts to improve service in the city’s northwest.