Comment Tens of thousands of people filled the central boulevard of the Mexican capital on Sunday to protest President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s proposal to overhaul the country’s electoral authority in the biggest demonstration against one of the president’s efforts in nearly four years in office. of. The massive turnout was a strong rebuke of the president’s claim that criticism comes only from a relatively small, elite opposition. Opposition parties and civil society organizations had called on Mexicans to demonstrate in the capital and other cities against proposed electoral reforms that would recreate the National Electoral Institute, one of the country’s most trusted and trusted institutions. López Obrador sees the institute as beholden to the elite, but critics say his reforms will threaten its independence and make it more political. The initiative includes eliminating state-level election offices, reducing public funding of political parties and allowing the public to elect members of the electoral authority instead of the lower house of Congress. It would also reduce the number of lawmakers in the lower house of Congress from 500 to 300 and senators from 128 to 96 by eliminating general legislators. They are not elected directly by voters, but appear on party lists and receive seats based on their party’s vote share. The proposal is expected to be debated in Mexico’s Congress in the coming weeks, where the president’s Morena party and allies have an advantage. “I’m already fed up with Andrés Manuel, with so many lies, so many crimes,” said Alejandra Galán, a 45-year-old manager, as she raised a Mexican flag in the middle of the crowd. “He wants to take the (electoral establishment) from us so that it ends up being like Venezuela, Cuba, but we’re not going to let him.” Jorge Gonzalez said such comparisons to authoritarian regimes may seem exaggerated at this point, but “I think it’s only a step away. We must have a clear separation of powers, independent institutions and especially the National Electoral Institute.” The 49-year-old, who works in the financial sector, noted the seven decades of uninterrupted rule by the Institutional Revolutionary Party, which was finally ousted in 2000. “The fear is that we won’t have an independent civic institution that we can really trust in elections and ( instead) to go back to a one-party-ruled way.” Fernando Belaunzárán, one of the supporters of the protest, said 200,000 people took part in the march. Authorities have not confirmed that number. López Obrador has spent decades fighting electoral authorities. He considers himself the victim of electoral fraud on several occasions, although it was the National Election Institute that confirmed his landslide presidential victory in 2018. Organizers said the march is not against López Obrador, but to draw attention to the proposal and urge lawmakers to vote against it. López Obrador’s party does not have enough votes to pass constitutional reform without the support of the opposition. Last week, López Obrador devoted much of his daily morning press conferences to dismissing the protest’s supporters, calling them “cretins” and “corrupt,” aiming to fool the world. He defended the proposal as seeking to reduce the electoral authority’s budget and avoid “electoral fraud”. While they agree that some cost savings could be desirable, some analysts worry that eliminating state election offices would over-concentrate power at the federal level and sacrifice efficiency. Choosing the members of the Electoral Court and the leadership of the institute by popular vote would give parties more power to choose candidates. The proposal would also reduce the institute’s board members from 11 to seven. Patricio Morelos of the Technological University of Monterrey pointed out that with López Obrador enjoying high popularity and his party controlling the majority of Mexico’s 32 state governments, they would have an advantage if the electoral authority were restructured and would likely exercise control. Protester Giovanni Rodrigo, a 44-year-old wage earner, said López Obrador does not want to leave power if he is not in the presidency himself, he wants to decide who. “I believe without a doubt that he is the best politician that exists today in modern history and that is why he is the owner of a party” that controls the majority of Mexican states, he said. “It wasn’t enough. He wants more and more.” AP writer Mark Stevenson contributed to this report.
