Central to the GTSEZ city-state is Zhao Wei’s

Daniela Arias, a coordinator for the pro-democracy think tank Laboratorio Electoral, remembers Lopez Obrador railing against the judges at his daily news briefings.“The president's questions in his morning press conferences were: What legitimacy do these [judges] have, versus what the people decided at the polls? Why are they holding up my projects?” Arias said.

With less than a month left in his presidency, Lopez Obrador decided to do something about his complaints. He pushed forward with hislong-desired reformsto the judiciary — including the imposition of mandatory elections.

But the changes required a constitutional amendment. Still, Lopez Obrador was head of the Morena party, the most powerful force in contemporary Mexican politics.Wielding his sway, he was able to secure the backing of both the Senate and the majority of Mexico's states, allowing the reforms to become law.

“That’s when this bidding war began,” Arias said of the elections.

'Rushed' preparationHe was convicted in 1973 on state charges in Illinois for the murder of 19-year-old drug dealer William “Pooky” Young and sentenced to 200 years in prison.

Online state prison records show that Hoover was an inmate at Dixon Correctional Center in western Illinois from 1974. He was accused of continuing to direct the Gangster Disciples from behind bars.In 1997, Hoover was convicted on federal charges of extortion, federal drug conspiracy and continuing to engage in a criminal enterprise. Hoover has spent nearly three decades in solitary confinement at ADX Florence, a maximum security prison in Colorado, according to his lawyers.

What crimes has the Gangster Disciples gang been involved in?According to court documents, Hoover was one of the leaders of the gang between 1970 and 1995. The documents state that under Hoover, the Gangster Disciples sold “great quantities of cocaine, heroin, and other drugs in Chicago”.