Mexico: President cancels march against electoral reform

MEXICO CITY (AP) — The debate generated in Mexico by electoral reform intensified on Monday due to sharp criticism from the country’s President, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, of the promoters of the massive protest called against a package of laws that has fueled fears that Mexico’s electoral arbiter could lose the independence that was essential to ending one-party rule.

“They don’t care about democracy, but what they want is for the predominance of an oligarchy, of a government of the rich to continue,” López Obrador said Monday when questioning organizers and leaders of the opposition who attended the mobilization over the weekend. called conservatives, “undemocrats” and “white collar criminals”.

During his morning conference, the president devoted more than half an hour of his space to showing photographs of some of the opponents and former officials who participated in the rally that took place the day before at the Zócalo in Mexico City, the main square of the capital in front of the government palace and the Supreme Court of Justice.

The demonstration was against the reform of a package of laws which was approved last week by the pro-government majority in Congress, with the support of its allied forces.

“The majority participated in previous governments, they were, as I said, the defenders of electoral fraud, they were part of the corruption in Mexico, they belonged to the narco-state,” the leader said. against the protest organizers and opposition leaders.

He linked some of them to former Public Security Secretary Genaro García Luna, who was convicted last week in the United States of accepting large bribes to protect cartels from Drugs.

Ironically, he admitted that during the protest “pocket thefts have increased in the Zócalo, but that’s inconsequential, imagine with so many white-collar criminals gathered together.”

López Obrador attributed to a “lie” by his opponents that the electoral reform he promoted seeks to affect Mexican democracy and argued that “they are essentially undemocratic”.

Regarding the number of participants in the mobilization, the president indicated that between 80,000 and 100,000 people were present, even if some opponents and organizers claim that around 500,000 people took part.

“They have to move even more people,” the president said, rejecting the concentration and added that those who demonstrated in the capital on Sunday represent “a vanguard” and an “elite” of the conservative sectors of Mexico that he estimated at some 25. million people.

The electoral reform, which will come into force after its publication in the Official Gazette of the Federation, will reduce the structure and personnel of the National Electoral Institute and limit the powers of control of the electoral body and sanction of parties and candidates. who do not report campaign expenses.

Changes to election law caught the attention of the US government on Sunday. US Under Secretary of State for the Western Hemisphere, Brian A. Nichols, said in a post on his Twitter account that Mexico is witnessing a great debate on electoral reforms that “test the independence of electoral institutions and judicial”.

“The United States supports independent electoral institutions that have the resources to strengthen democratic processes and the rule of law,” Nichols said.

For his part, State Department spokesman Ned Price told reporters on Monday that Washington respects Mexico’s sovereignty, but asserted that an independent, well-funded electoral system and respect for judicial independence support a “healthy democracy”.

López Obrador’s reaction came as no surprise to analysts who pointed to the confrontational style he maintained during his six-year term – which began in 2018 – and to which they attribute the polarization in Mexico.

Rubén Salazar, director of the local firm Etellekt Consultores, who is dedicated to designing communication strata, análisis de riesgos y políticas públicas, told The Associated Press that el gobernante con su discurso está “ejerciendo presión” sur la Suprema Corte de Justice de the nation. This will soon have to rule on the legal appeals of activists and opponents and other actions that the council of the National Electoral Institute (INE) intends to present in the coming days to try to stop the reform.

Of the repercussions of Sunday’s protest, considered one of the largest in the legislature, Salazar was skeptical. The “lack of leadership from the opposition prevents all these institutions such as the INE and the Supreme Court from defending themselves against the onslaught of the president”, he said.

The analyst said the opposition is mistaken in resorting to “the old, very worn leadership” and failing to deliver a political message that includes the poorest sections of society, as López Obrador frequently does.

The president has focused his attacks on the INE, alleging that it spends a lot of money, that the leaders have high salaries and that it should be invested in the poor. Mexican elections are expensive by international standards, in part because nearly all legal campaign finance is, by law, provided by the government. INE also issues voter cards, the most common form of official identification in Mexico, and oversees elections in remote and often dangerous parts of the country.

Tyler Mattiace, a researcher who covers Mexico in the Americas division of Human Rights Watch, said it was “disappointing” and “absurd” that López Obrador had pushed for electoral reform to change one of the few things that he assured, worked for the democratic transition in Mexico, as did the formation of a reliable electoral arbiter, which helped break decades of domination by the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI).

“It is worrying that all of this is happening just before the 2024 (presidential) elections in a context where the president has shown very little tolerance towards people who disagree with him,” Mattiace said, acknowledging that this situation will lead to “less certainty” on the results of the next elections.

López Obrador retains popular support hovering around 60%, according to leading local pollsters. Although he cannot run again, his party Movimiento Regeneración Nacional (Morena) is the favorite in next year’s legislative elections when the opposition seems very weak, a situation accentuated by its divisions and its lack of leadership. ____

AP writer Gisela Salomón contributed to this Miami story.