Who won Mexico’s presidential debate? According to the media and Twitter frenzy, at least, the victor was not any candidate, but a curvaceous model in a tight gown who puzzled millions by appearing on stage for less than 30 seconds during the showdown.
Julia Orayen has posed nude for Playboy and appeared barely dressed in other media, but she made her mark on Mexican minds on Sunday night by carrying an urn filled with bits of paper determining the order that candidates would speak.
Not that viewers were looking at the urn.
Photo: Reuters
She wore a tight, white dress with a wide, tear-drop cutout that revealed her ample decolletage. The image was splashed across newspaper front pages and Web sites by Monday.
“The best was the girl in white with the cleavage at the beginning,” tweeted former Mexican foreign minister Jorge Castaneda, who is a New York University professor.
Orayen’s name jockeyed for third and fourth place throughout the day under Twitter’s Mexico City trends, where a click revealed her previous work, including an almost-nude spread commemorating Mexican Independence Day in which she appears in minimal garb modeled on images of Mexican founding father, Jose Maria Morelos.
Alfredo Figueroa, director of the Federal Electoral Institute responsible for organizing the debate, blamed the incident on a production associate hired by the institute to help with the debate. The institute later issued an apology to Mexican citizens and the candidates for the woman’s dress.
Figueroa told MVS radio he had requested an aide in “sober dress.”
Interviewed by the Cadena Tres TV network, Orayen said the production team gave her instructions to wear a long, white dress, but she picked it out from her own closet.
“It was my only choice for a long dress. I didn’t think it would reveal as much or cause this much scandal,” she said. “I learned I like myself better when I’m covered up.”
At least one candidate was seen gawking at Orayen’s posterior from the dais. Gabriel Quadri, who is drawing single-digit support as the candidate of the New Alliance party, said her appearance made him nervous.
“It is impossible not to concentrate your attention on a woman so spectacular,” Quadri said in an MVS radio interview.
It was the only thing unforeseen in a debate that analysts said would likely have no impact on the candidates’ standings in the polls. Enrique Pena Nieto of the Institutional Revolutionary Party has for weeks enjoyed a double-digit lead over Josefina Vazquez Mota of the conservative National Action and Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador of the leftist Democratic Revolution Party.
Joking with the female news host and a character in the TV show who wears a gorilla mask, Orayen said she did not totally enjoy being a 17-second sensation, especially after reading the string of nasty comments of her dress choice on Twitter and Facebook.
“It wasn’t a pleasant surprise,” she said, now wearing a rather conservative pink top.
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
RSS