In this Spanish name, the first or paternal surname is Rojo de la Vega and the second or maternal family name is Piccolo.
Alessandra Rojo de la Vega
Personal details
Occupation
Politician
Alessandra Rojo de la Vega Piccolo is a Mexican activist, businesswoman, influencer and politician who in 2024 became the mayor of the borough of Cuauhtémoc in Mexico City after a contested election.[1]
Education
Rojo de la Vega obtained a Bachelor's Degree in Communication Science from Universidad Iberoamericana, and a Law degree from the Universidad Jurídica del Sureste.[2]
Activism
Rojo de la Vega founded United Movement for Childhood (Movimiento Unido por la Infancia, MUI México) in 2014, a non-profit organization focused on helping protect and develop children and teenagers in Mexico. Among other projects, MUI México worked with children and teenagers in The Lost City of Tacubaya, a shantytown with a high crime rate in Mexico City.[3] She was also President of "No es una somos todas AC" ("Is not one, is all of us"), an organization dedicated to fighting gender violence.[4] In 2022 she was interviewed by Carolina Rosario from ¡Despierta América!, where she talked about gender violence against women in Mexico.[5]
Political career
Rojo de la Vega started her career in politics as part of the social communications team in the State of Mexico and in 2012 for President Enrique Peña Nieto. She was the director of Social Development in the Miguel Hidalgo borough, and a local deputy for the Partido Verde Ecologista (PVEM) in the Mexico City Congress from 2018 to 2021.[6]
Election for Mayor of Cuauhtémoc, Mexico City
On 31 January 2024 Alito Moreno announced on X that Rojo de la Vega would be the candidate for the PRI-PAN-PRD Coalition for Mayor of Cuauhtémoc.[7] She won the election of 2 June 2024 by a difference between 11,000 to 12,000 votes, but the results were contested by Catalina "Caty" Monreal, the candidate from Morena.[8] Monreal alleged irregularities in at least 532 polling centers and demanded a full recount of all the votes.[9] However, on 20 July the regional court of the Electoral Tribunal denied generalized irregularities and only authorized a limited recount of 73 polling centers, which was carried out and did not alter the election result.[10][11][12]
Caty Monreal submitted another request for nullification of the election, alleging political gender violence as well as violations of the spending rules by Rojo de la Vega's campaign.[13] Monreal claimed that political gender violence was done against her when Rojo de la Vega said that she was a puppet candidate imposed by her father, Ricardo Monreal, a prominent Morena politician and former mayor of Cuauhtémoc. Rojo de la Vega denied this, saying that referring to Monreal by her last name, and pointing out her and her family's corruption did not constitute political gender violence.[14] During the campaign for Cuauhtémoc it was reported that a company partially owned by Caty Monreal had received numerous contracts from the state of Zacatecas, governed by her uncle, David Monreal.[15]
Rojo de la Vega is the daughter of businessman Martin Rojo de la Vega and Monica Piccolo. Her siblings are fitness influencers Nunzia and Gabriel Rojo de la Vega. In February 2014 she married architect Emmanuel Gray, with whom she had three children: Martinah, and twins Lucah and Milah. She divorced Gray in 2022.[16]