{"id":7975,"date":"2022-11-13T21:46:01","date_gmt":"2022-11-14T02:46:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/?p=7975"},"modified":"2022-11-13T21:46:01","modified_gmt":"2022-11-14T02:46:01","slug":"massive-turnout-in-defense-of-mexicos-electoral-authority","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/?p=7975","title":{"rendered":"Massive Turnout in Defense of Mexico\u2019s Electoral Authority"},"content":{"rendered":"
Citizen organizations rally at Mexico City’s iconic “Angel of Independence” monument in support of Mexico’s National Elections Institute as President Andr\u00e9s Manuel Lopez Obrador pushes to overhaul it, Sunday, Nov. 13, 2022. (AP Photo\/Marco Ugarte)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Tens of thousands of people packed the Mexican capital\u2019s main boulevard Sunday to protest President Andr\u00e9s Manuel L\u00f3pez Obrador\u2019s proposal to overhaul the country\u2019s electoral authority in the largest demonstration against one of the president\u2019s efforts during his nearly four years in office.<\/p>\n

The massive turnout was a strong rebuke of the president\u2019s assertion that criticism comes only from a relatively small, elite opposition.<\/p>\n

Opposition parties and civil society organizations had called on Mexicans to demonstrate in the capital and other cities against proposed electoral reforms that would remake the National Electoral Institute, one of the country\u2019s most prized and trusted institutions.<\/p>\n

L\u00f3pez Obrador sees the institute as beholden to the elite, but critics say his reforms would threaten its independence and make it more political. The initiative includes eliminating state-level electoral offices, cutting public financing of political parties and allowing the public to elect members of the electoral authority rather than the lower chamber of Congress.<\/p>\n

It would also reduce the number of legislators in the lower chamber of Congress from 500 to 300 and senators from 128 to 96 by eliminating at-large lawmakers. Those are not directly elected by voters, but appear on party lists and get seats based on their party\u2019s proportion of the vote.<\/p>\n

The proposal is expected to be discussed in Mexico\u2019s Congress in coming weeks, where the president\u2019s Morena party and allies hold an advantage.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m already fed up with Andr\u00e9s Manuel, with so many lies, so much crime,\u201d said Alejandra Gal\u00e1n, a 45-year-old manager, as she raised a Mexican flag in the middle of the multitude. \u201cHe wants to take the (electoral institute) from us so that eventually it\u2019s like Venezuela, Cuba, but we\u2019re not going to let him.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jorge Gonz\u00e1lez said such comparisons to authoritarian regimes may seem exaggerated at this point, but \u201cI think it\u2019s only a step away. We have to have a clear separation of powers, independent institutions and especially the National Electoral Institute.\u201d<\/p>\n

The 49-year-old, who works in the finance sector, noted the seven decades of uninterrupted rule by the Institutional Revolutionary Party, which was finally ousted in 2000. \u201cThe fear is not having an independent civic institution, where we can really trust in the elections and (instead) going back to a way with an institute where it\u2019s run by a single party.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fernando Belaunzar\u00e1n, one of the promoters of the protest, said 200,000 people participated in the march. Authorities did not confirm this figure.<\/p>\n

L\u00f3pez Obrador has spent decades battling electoral authorities. He considers himself a victim of electoral fraud on multiple occasions, though it was the National Electoral Institute that confirmed his landslide presidential victory in 2018.<\/p>\n

Organizers have said the march is not against L\u00f3pez Obrador, but to draw attention to the proposal and to urge lawmakers to vote against it.<\/p>\n

L\u00f3pez Obrador\u2019s party does not have enough votes to pass the constitutional reform without support from the opposition.<\/p>\n

Last week, L\u00f3pez Obrador dedicated a good part of his daily morning press conferences to dismissing the promoters of the demonstration, calling them \u201ccretins\u201d and \u201ccorrupt,\u201d aiming to trick the people. He defended the proposal as seeking to reduce the electoral authority\u2019s budget and avoiding \u201celectoral fraud.\u201d<\/p>\n

While agreeing that some cost savings could be desirable, some analysts worry eliminating the state electoral offices would concentrate power too much at the federal level and sacrifice efficiency.<\/p>\n

Selecting members of the Electoral Court and leadership of the institute by popular vote would give the parties more power to pick candidates. The proposal would also reduce members of the institute\u2019s council from 11 to seven.<\/p>\n

Patricio Morelos of Monterrey Technological University pointed out that with L\u00f3pez Obrador enjoying high popularity and his party controlling the majority of Mexico\u2019s 32 state governments, they would have an advantage if the electoral authority is remade and would likely exert control.<\/p>\n

Protester Giovanni Rodrigo, a 44-year-old salaried worker, said L\u00f3pez Obrador does not want to let go of power, if it\u2019s not himself in the presidency, he wants to decide who.<\/p>\n

\u201cI believe without a doubt he is the best politician that exists today in modern history and that\u2019s why he is the owner of a party\u201d that controls the majority of Mexican states, he said. \u201cIt hasn\u2019t been enough. He wants more and more.\u201d<\/p>\n

– Fabiola S\u00e1nchez, Mark Stevenson, AP News<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tens of thousands of people packed the Mexican capital\u2019s main boulevard Sunday to protest President Andr\u00e9s Manuel L\u00f3pez Obrador\u2019s proposal to overhaul the country\u2019s electoral authority in the largest demonstration against one of the president\u2019s efforts during his nearly four years in office. The massive turnout was a strong rebuke of the president\u2019s assertion that…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":124,"featured_media":7977,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/storage.googleapis.com\/afs-prod\/media\/dc4806626e1444af99e184ae37f3d9da\/800.jpeg","fifu_image_alt":"Massive Turnout in Defense of Mexico\u2019s Electoral Authority","footnotes":""},"categories":[192],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7975","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-polity-governance"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7975","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/124"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7975"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7975\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7976,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7975\/revisions\/7976"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/7977"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7975"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7975"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7975"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}