A massive demonstration against the government and its electoral reform project

Tens of thousands of protesters demonstrated in Mexico City on Sunday against an electoral reform bill introduced by leftist President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, in the largest rally against the incumbent authority in nearly four years.

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A human current flooded the central avenue of Paseo de la Reforma to reject the project that, according to its opponents, threatens the independence of the National Electoral Institute (INE) responsible for organizing elections since its creation in October 1990, the AFP team.

Among the demonstrators were former President Vicente Fox (2000–2006) and Vice President Santiago Creel (who held the rotating presidency of the Chamber of Deputies for a year), both of whom are members of the National Action Party (PAN, a right-wing opposition).

France Press agency

Amid the crowd, English teacher Graciela Abril sees the reform project as “very serious”.

Ms April, 53, who came with her husband, accused the incumbent president “who wants all elections to depend on the government again, so that he can manipulate it as he pleases and stay in power”.

Still popular after nearly four years in office, President Lopez Obrador sees that the English National Institute covered fraud during previous elections in 2006 and 2012, which he lost.

Mr. López Obrador was elected in 2018 to a single six-year term ending in 2024, when the next presidential election is scheduled.

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The demonstrators were wearing pink T-shirts, the color of the National Institute of Statistics.

France Press agency

“I am not corrupt, class, racist, hypocritical,” the poster declared, referring to adjectives that López Obrador was able to use last week to exclude opponents of reform who were preparing to demonstrate.

“It is not a question of opposing today’s government, but against any government that today or tomorrow wants to control the elections,” Francesco Videla, a 50-year-old trader who came with family and friends, told AFP. .

France Press agency

The reform stipulates that the board of directors of the National Electoral Institute will be elected by popular vote, as well as reducing subsidies to political parties.

The reform also plans to reduce the number of federal representatives from 500 to 300. The number of senators will be increased from 128 to 96.

Mr. Lopez Obrador’s party and his allies dominate both houses.