Tens of thousands of protesters filled the Zócalo, Mexico City’s main public square, on Sunday to reject an electoral reform approved by the pro-government majority in Congress, which according to the opposition threatens the body in charge of organizing the 2024 presidential elections .
Under the slogan #MiVotoNoSeToca, a crowd dressed in white and pink, the institutional colors of the electoral body, filled a large part of the esplanade of the capital and several neighboring streets of the historic center of Mexico City.
“What are you afraid of? Citizenship? Democracy? Free and neutral elections?” said Claudio X. González, one of the organizers of the protest, on Twitter this Sunday, about the security measures in the square, on one of whose flanks the palace where President Andrés Manuel López Obrador lives.
The center-left president toured the interior of the country this weekend.
Changes under discussion
Opponents reject the changes to the laws promoted by López Obrador and approved last Wednesday by the Legislature, dominated by the ruling party and its allies.
According to the Autonomous National Electoral Institute (INE), these changes they eliminate 85% of career staff and reduce the operational capacity of the organizationwhich López Obrador accuses of being onerous and of having tolerated fraud in the past.
The INE ensures that the reforms reduce its territorial structure by eliminating the 300 district councils it has throughout the country and which are the bodies that prepare, organize and hold elections. In each state there would now be an office run by one person.
These changes concern the updating and purification of the electoral lists (made up of about 93 million voters), the agency said in an analysis of the approved articles.
Also The staff responsible for training the voting juries disappears and the ability to monitor electioneering on radio and television is limited, he adds.
Similarly, the reform limits the powers of the INE to sanction public officials who speak up for a candidate during an election campaign.
“Key pieces of the legal and institutional design of the Mexican electoral system that have allowed for the peaceful and periodic renewal of powers through free and secret voting risk being harmed”, underlines the institute.
López Obrador defends himself
Opponents denounce that with these changes the independence of the INE is being affected and the balance is tipping in favor of the government in view of the presidential elections scheduled for mid-2024.
López Obrador has disqualified this Sunday’s protest, underlining that a group of “corrupts” are behind it who wants to return to power to continue stealing. The president, whose popularity hovers around 60%, defends the reform by assuring that organizing elections in Mexico is costly.
The president, with no legal options to seek re-election, has implied that those taking part in the protest are also defending Genaro García Luna, secretary of public security during the government of former president Felipe Calderón (2006-2012), who has just been found guilty .in a New York drug court.
“They go so far as to say: ‘The INE cannot be touched’, but also ‘García Luna cannot be touched’, and basically it is ‘the corrupt and conservative regime cannot be touched’. That’s what it’s for,” the president said in his latest press conferences.
López Obrador denounces that the presidency was “stolen” in the 2006 and 2012 elections.
The changes to the electoral laws were approved after the failure of a constitutional reform last December in which the ruling party proposed to eliminate the INE, failing to obtain the necessary votes.
That attempt led to a massive protest on November 13 in Mexico City, to which López Obrador responded by mobilizing tens of thousands of his supporters in the capital.
Both the INE and the opposition parties have announced that they will sue the government’s so-called “plan B” before the Supreme Court of Justice.
Source: AFP
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Source: Clarin
Mary Ortiz is a seasoned journalist with a passion for world events. As a writer for News Rebeat, she brings a fresh perspective to the latest global happenings and provides in-depth coverage that offers a deeper understanding of the world around us.