Between 10,000 and 12,000 people came out this Sunday to demonstrate in defense of the National Electoral Institute (INE), the target of a reform promoted by Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, according to the participation balance published by the Secretary of Government of Mexico City, Martí Batres.
The final manifesto of the march was read by the head of the extinct Federal Electoral Institute (IFE), INE’s predecessor, José Woldenberg, who stated that Mexico does not deserve an electoral reform «driven by a single will», and therefore called to say «no» to the «destruction» of INE and to «authoritarianism».
Thus, he called on the political parties «to defend what has been built in electoral matters» because the electoral body cannot get rid of the federal framework without losing effectiveness.
«We left behind the one-man country to make way for free, contestable and credible elections», he said. To achieve this required marches and the ability to form electoral bodies from eight reforms between 1988 and 2014.
«The results are in sight. From this, competitive elections, plural Congresses were achieved. The constitutional and peaceful alternation occurred thanks to the democratizing process and in 200 years of independent life had not been achieved. The culminating building was the INE and this change cannot be explained without the existence of the electoral system», he argued.
«Mexico cannot return to the era of an electoral institution aligned to the government. Mexico cannot centralize electoral processes in two huge institutions, not only because Mexico is a federal republic, but also because there are 32 sovereign entities in the country», he pointed out.
The current president of INE, Lorenzo Córdova, has expressed his «enthusiasm» for the demonstrations in Mexico City and other locations.
«The members of the General Council of INE decided not to participate in these legitimate acts of defense of democracy to avoid that our presence could be used to disqualify the free will of the citizens who today made themselves heard in the streets to protect our democratic conquests,» he said.
In response, a spokesman for the ruling Morena party, Mario Delgado, criticized the organizers of the demonstration as «addicted to luxuries and privileges».
«It is time for definitions, while Mexicans time and again express their desire for change, the conservative group resists precisely to change, to live in an authentic democracy. They want to keep in force the practices of the old regime and continue manipulating the electoral authorities because they believe they are the owners of democracy in this country», he pointed out.
The electoral reform does not aim at the disappearance of INE, he assured, but «on the contrary, it seeks to strengthen it, as well as to give more power to the people and to make politics cost less».
