The participants carried cardboard with the legend “the INE is not touched” or “I defend the INE”, as a reply to the demonstration called in Mexico City and more than 50 Mexican cities.
Madrid.—Several dozens of Mexicans living in Spain demonstrated in front of the official residence of the Mexican ambassador, Quirino Ordaz, to protest against the reform of the National Electoral Institute (INE) proposed by the government of Andrés Manuel Lopez Obrador.
“Worker, a traitor; the INE is not touched”, was one of the main harangues shouted by the protesters called by the Mexico Civil Society collective, from Madrid.
All the participants carried cardboard with the legend “the INE is not touched” or “I defend the INE”, as a reply to the demonstration called in Mexico City and more than 50 Mexican cities.
Inés Fernández, a Mexican who is studying philosophy in Madrid, pointed out that “80% approve of the INE, no matter who they are. We are a democratic country, we have a history of being a country governed by a dictatorship, and we do not want more. This is not a march against the president, it is not a march against Morena.”
“It is a march so that you, if you are from Morena, you, if you are from the PAN, the PRI or apolitical, you can continue voting for whoever you want. We want Mexico to remain a democracy. We are always going to vote in favor of Mexico, not in favor of anyone, only Mexico and Mexicans,” she added.
The concentration took place this Sunday at 1:00 p.m. (Spanish time), in front of the official residence of the Mexican embassy, on Calle Pinar 13, in the exclusive Salamanca neighborhood, where several dozen Mexicans gathered, who showed their open opposition to the reform proposed by President López Obrador. “I defend the INE”, showed some of the banners
Jorge Vázquez, a Mexican businessman based in Madrid, warned that this reform intends to return Mexico to the darkest stage of the PRI. “I think so, it is a throwback to the ‘perfect dictatorship’ -as the Nobel Prize winner Mario Vargas Llosa called it-, where there was a change of leader, but the structure was always preserved, and that is what they want to do now, and we cannot allow that. This is a reform to make electoral competition very uncompetitive, with which the party in power is going to benefit.”
“We want there to be fair competition” and after the alternation of 2000, the return of the PRI and the arrival of Morena to power, “we must have the option of removing them from power if they do not govern well; but they are organizing `la loaded’, as in times of the PRI. That is why we want to defend the INE”, he added.
Neither Ambassador Ordaz nor any official from the embassy attended to the dissatisfied Mexicans, at least during the concentration, who showed banners in defense of the INE.
Patricia, one of the conveners, defended that it be “the citizens who decide what they want freely, that there be democracy, that democracy continue with the INE and that it be respected, that (the president) not make changes before the elections, We citizens will do it slowly”.
Antonio Cervera, another of the attendees, considered that an independent electoral body is required, “not a body controlled by the government, as is the proposal that the current government is making. We want an independent INE, which is what democracy has given us and allowed the president to get to where he is now.”
Gustavo Lomelí, another of the participants, after recalling the long journey that the electoral body has had since the 1990s, to reach the current INE, considered that the current body has undergone a series of adjustments, as has democracy itself.
“We have a reliable Institute. The arguments they have put forward are totally false, that is, it is said that it costs a lot. The works and waste that the government makes cost more, what is stolen, and the lack of democracy costs more. It has cost us a lot, and it is a contradiction that the president intends to make it disappear,” said Lomelí.
Likewise, a contingent of Mexicans also gathered outside the Mexican consulate in Barcelona, at 5:00 p.m. (local time), where they protested against the reform and with harangues of degensa from the INE. The cry was the same: “Obrador, traitor; the INE does not touch”.
Mexico Daily Post
