Thousands of people filled Mexico City’s main square on Sunday in support of the national electoral authority, accusing President Andrés Manuel López Obrador of trying to weaken the body ahead of presidential elections in June.
Organizers said some 700,000 protesters, dressed in pink, turned out in Mexico City, potentially marking one of the largest protests against López Obrador as his administration nears its end.
However, the Government of Mexico City, controlled by López Obrador’s MORENA party, said that approximately 90,000 people attended the plaza.
The protests, the latest in a series in recent years aimed at “protecting” the National Electoral Institute (INE), come after López Obrador sent a broad package of constitutional reforms to Congress, which would include an overhaul of the INE.
López Obrador has made no secret that the package of initiatives is intended to influence the debate before the June 2 vote, in which his political successor Claudia Sheinbaum is likely to win, although the president has said that it is unlikely that the bill will be approved. most of the reforms.
One initiative would convert the INE into the National Institute of Elections and Consultations, which would take charge of the country’s local electoral bodies and reduce the number of councilors who head the group. It would also require that electoral magistrates be chosen by popular vote.
“From the power, they seek to disappear them, subordinate them, or capture them (…), we have seen a fierce attack against these institutions,” Lorenzo Córdova, former head of the INE, told the crowd.
The president has long shared his distaste for the INE. He even accused the electoral body of helping engineer his defeats when he ran for president in 2006 and 2012.
Protesters on Sunday accused López Obrador of meddling in an attempt to concentrate power in the hands of his party’s government, although López Obrador has said he will respect the election results.
Protesters also used the protests to speak out against other hallmarks of López Obrador’s administration, including what they allege is a failure to curb widespread violence and social spending programs.
“The current Government is leading us to catastrophe,” said María de los Ángeles López. «It is leading us to be worse and worse, to be afraid, to not want to go out on the street because we are afraid, that my money will no longer work and will not reach me (…), that is why I come to complain ».
After the massive demonstration, López Obrador continued to attack his critics. He said that there would be no fraud in the elections and that he had not intervened in the democratic processes.
“It is their democracy… the democracy of the corrupt. And what we want is for there to be democracy of the people. We do not want power without the people. “They are the ones who established anti-democracy with electoral fraud.”
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