The protesters accused the Government of throwing away 528 million pesos in the garbage in the exercise instead of investigating the crimes.
Civil organizations demanded this Friday President Andrés Manuel López Obrador stop the “farce” of the popular consultation that he promotes with the argument of trying the ex-presidents of the “neoliberal period.”
“The August 1 consultation is a show, it is a farce, it only serves the president to stay on the campaign and to pretext that he does want to fight corruption,” denounced Leonardo García Camarena, coordinator of the Mexico Rescue Mission, in a protest in front of the National Palace.
His association and Ciudadanos por México: Red de Organizaciones Ciudadanas delivered 15,000 signatures against the consultation collected on CitizenGo, a digital platform for conservative causes, to prevent voting.
The protesters accused the Government of “throwing away” 528 million pesos in the exercise instead of investigating the crimes.
“Enough of wasting time and public money in partisan shows, use all legal instruments and the weight of the Government to punish alleged corrupt both from the past and present,” Garcia Camarena demanded.
The president promoted the vote, the first in the history of the country under the Federal Law of Popular Consultation, to ask the electorate about his predecessors, which he ascribes to the “neoliberal period.”
Although the original question mentioned by name and asked to investigate the “alleged commission of crimes” of Carlos Salinas de Gortari (1988-1994), Ernesto Zedillo (1994-2000), Vicente Fox (2000-2006), Felipe Calderón (2006-2012 ) and Enrique Peña Nieto (2012-2018), the Supreme Court changed the question.
“Do you agree or not that the pertinent actions be carried out, in accordance with the constitutional and legal framework, to undertake a process of clarification of the political decisions made in recent years by political actors aimed at guaranteeing justice and the rights of the possible victims? ”, is the question that the Court endorsed last October.
For this reason, opposition associations and politicians have accused the Government of “lying” about the consultation.
They also doubted the success of the vote, which needs some 37.4 million voters to make it binding.
“The farce is doomed to failure since it is now legal and almost 40% of the nominal list is required to participate in order for it to be binding, that is, for the Law to be applied,” said García Camarena.
Before handing over the signatures at the National Palace, the protesters displayed banners with slogans such as “stop the farce!” and “apply the law.”
Despite criticism, President López Obrador defended the exercise on Thursday by arguing that he seeks “for the competent authorities to act, for human rights to be respected.”
“Yes to the consultation, yes to the plebiscite in all cases, and not be afraid of the people. The other thing is to continue betting that it is the elites who decide, “he justified in his daily press conference.
Source: forbes.com.mx
