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MEXICO CITY (AP) \u2014 There were plenty of reasons to criticize Mexico\u2019s first presidential debate<\/a> leading up to the June 2 election. The format was a bit constrictive, and the candidates\u2019 timer wasn\u2019t working at some points, leaving it unclear how much longer they could speak.<\/p>\n But President Andr\u00e9s Manuel L\u00f3pez Obrador said Tuesday he had a novel reason for disliking Sunday\u2019s debate: It wasn\u2019t about him.<\/p>\n Focused on his legacy, L\u00f3pez Obrador has long compared his administration<\/a> to the most heroic chapters of Mexican history. So he was angry the debate moderators posed questions about corruption or problems with the education and health care systems. Those are issues he says<\/a> he has resolved.<\/p>\n \u201cThe whole narrative of the debate, if you analyze it, revolved around what our opponents say,\u201d L\u00f3pez Obrador said at his daily press briefing. \u201cThe whole narrative of the debate was to not recognize anything\u201d done under his administration, \u201cas if we had not focused on completely banishing corruption.\u201d<\/p>\n L\u00f3pez Obrador has acknowledged that corruption cases continued to occur after he took office in December 2018.<\/p>\n The debate questions weren’t written by the moderators. They were chosen from among those submitted by citizens, and each candidate could chose among groups of questions.<\/p>\n The Constitution limits presidents to one six-year term, so L\u00f3pez Obrador cannot run again.<\/p>\n Newspaper columnist Salvador Garc\u00eda Soto cited anonymous administration sources as saying L\u00f3pez Obrador also was angry with his party’s candidate because she did not defend him enough.<\/p>\n Former Mexico City mayor Claudia Sheinbaum is running on the ticket of the president’s Morena party. Sheinbaum is seen as L\u00f3pez Obrador’s most loyal disciple and leads the polls in the presidential race.<\/p>\n But when asked how she would handle corruption, she apparently angered the president by referring to her own anti-graft programs in Mexico City, not Lopez Obrador’s efforts.<\/p>\n \u201cThe president felt offended because Claudia wasn’t vehement enough in defending the federal government,\u201d Garc\u00eda Soto wrote.<\/p>\n L\u00f3pez Obrador calls his administration \u201cthe Fourth Transformation,\u201d claiming it is the successor to the three most heroic chapters of Mexican history: the 1810-1821 fight for independence from Spain, the liberal reforms that broke the church\u2019s dominance in the 1850s and the 1910-1917 Mexican Revolution.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n