Tue, Feb 28, 2023 page7

• Tens of thousands protest in Mexico

  ELECTORAL LAW CHANGES: The Mexican president said that overspending at the election institute should go toward alleviating poverty, and the criticism is elitist

  • AP, MEXICO CITY
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  Tens of thousands of people filled Mexico City’s vast main plaza on Sunday to protest Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador’s electoral law changes they said threaten democracy and could mark a return to the past.

  The plaza is normally thought to hold nearly 100,000 people, but many protesters who could not fit in the square spilled onto nearby streets.

  The marchers were clad mostly in white and pink — the color of the Mexican National Electoral Institute — and shouted slogans such as: “Don’t Touch my Vote!”

  

  Demonstrators in Mexico City on Sunday protest against recent electoral law reforms pushed by Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador.

  Photo: AP

  As with a similar but somewhat larger march on Nov. 13, the marchers appeared somewhat more affluent than those at the average demonstration.

  The electoral law changes drew the attention of the US government.

  “Today, in Mexico, we see a great debate on electoral reforms that are testing the independence of electoral and judicial institutions,” Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs Brian Nichols wrote on Twitter

  “The United States supports independent, well-resourced electoral institutions that strengthen democratic processes and the rule of law,” Nichols wrote.

  Lopez Obrador’s proposals were passed last week. Once enacted, they would cut salaries, funding for local election offices and training for citizens who operate and oversee polling stations. They would also reduce penalties for candidates who fail to report campaign spending.

  Lopez Obrador denies the reforms are a threat to democracy and says criticism is elitist, saying that the institute spends too much money and the funds should be spent on impoverished Mexicans.

  However, protester Enrique Bastien, a 64-year-old veterinarian, said that Lopez Obrador “wants to return to the past” when “the government controlled elections.”

  “It was a life with no independence,” said Bastien, recalling the 1970s and 1980s, when the Institutional Revolutionary Party ruled Mexico with fraud and handouts.

  Fernando Gutierrez, 55, an owner of a small business, said Lopez Obrador wants to lead Mexico to a socialist government.

  “That’s obvious, from the aid going to Cuba,” Gutierrez said.

  Lopez Obrador has imported COVID-19 vaccines, medical workers and stone railway ballast from Cuba, but has shown little taste for socialist policies at home.

  Many other demonstrators were simply wary of the kind of vote miscounting, campaign overspending and electoral pressure tactics that were common in Mexico before the independent electoral agency was created in the 1990s.

  Lopez Obrador on Thursday said he would sign the changes into law, even though he expects court challenges.

  Many at Sunday’s protest expressed hope that the Mexican Supreme Court overturns some of the changes, as courts have done with other presidential initiatives.

  National Electoral Institute head Lorenzo Cordova said the reforms “seek to cut thousands of people who work every day to guarantee trustworthy elections, something that will of course pose a risk for future elections.”

  Lopez Obrador has appeared nonchalant about court challenges, saying on Thursday that he believes the changes would be upheld because they were not “outside the law.”

  However, in the past he has frequently attacked Mexico’s judiciary and claimed that judges are part of a conservative conspiracy against his administration.

  The president’s strident pushback against the judiciary, as well as regulatory and oversight agencies, has raised fears among some that he is seeking to reinstitute the practices of the Institutional Revolutionary Party, which bent the rules to retain the Mexican presidency for 70 years until its defeat in elections 23 years ago.

  Elections in Mexico are expensive by international standards, in part because almost all legal campaign financing is, by law, supplied by the government. The electoral institute also issues the secure voter ID cards that are the most commonly accepted form of identification in Mexico, and oversees balloting in the remote and often dangerous corners of the country.

  Lopez Obrador remains highly popular in Mexico, with approval ratings of about 60 percent. While he cannot run for reelection, his Morena party is favored in next year’s national elections, and the opposition is in disarray.

  Part of his popular appeal comes from railing against highly paid government bureaucrats, and he has been angered by the fact that some top electoral officials are paid more than the president.
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