Tens of thousands of demonstrators marched in Mexico City on Sunday against an electoral reform bill by leftist President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, the largest mobilization against the power in place in nearly four years.
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A human tide submerged the central avenue of the Paseo de la Reforma to reject the project which, according to its opponents, threatens the independence of the National Electoral Institute (INE) in charge of organizing the elections since its creation in October 1990, noted an AFP team.
Among the demonstrators were former President Vicente Fox (2000-2006) Deputy Santiago Creel (who held the rotating presidency of the Chamber of Deputies for a year), both members of the National Action Party (PAN, right-wing opposition ).
AFP
In the crowd, Graciela Aberel, an English teacher, judges that the reform project is “very serious”.
The president in place “wants all the elections to depend on the government again, so that he can manipulate them as he pleases and stay in power”, accused Ms. Aberel, 53, who came with her husband.
Still very popular after almost four years in office, President Lopez Obrador considers that the INE covered up fraud during the two previous elections in 2006 and 2012, which he had lost.
Mr. Lopez Obrador was elected in 2018 for a single six-year term, which ends in 2024, when the next presidential election is scheduled.
The demonstrators sported pink T-shirts, the color of the INE.
AFP
“I am not corrupt, classist, racist, hypocritical” proclaimed a poster, referring to the adjectives that Lopez Obrador was able to use last week to disqualify opponents of the reform who were preparing to demonstrate.
“It is not a question of being against the government of today, but against any government which today or tomorrow wants to take control of the elections”, declared to AFP Francisco Videla, a 50-year-old merchant who came with family and friends.
AFP
The reform envisages that the members of the board of directors of the INE be elected by popular vote, as well as a reduction in the subsidies allocated to political parties.
The reform also plans to reduce the number of federal deputies from 500 to 300. The number of senators would increase from 128 to 96.
Mr. Lopez Obrador’s party and its allies dominate both chambers.