Comment on this story
comment
MEXICO CITY — Tens of thousands of people packed Mexico’s main square on Sunday and rallied across the country to protest a law that would weaken the national electoral institute, with many fearing the measure could falter Mexico’s fledgling democracy.
The turnout underscored the electrification of the electoral law among voters after four years in which President Andrés Manuel López Obrador largely dominated political life. The party of the veteran left holds a majority in Congress and has won most of the governorships by outmaneuvering a divided opposition discredited by corruption scandals.
The uproar over the new law comes amid growing concerns about backsliding in democracies that replaced post-Cold War dictatorships in many parts of Latin America.
The protesters filled Mexico City’s Zocalo, the huge plaza in front of the presidential palace that seats about 100,000 people. Many wore shirts and baseball caps in pink, the color of the National Electoral Institute, or INE.
“Don’t touch our voice!” They chanted, waving Mexican flags and raising umbrellas against the late morning sun.
Lopez Obrador revised the electoral law, triggering protests
“We are not ready to lose our democracy,” said Óscar Casanova, 75, a businessman who attended the rally with his relatives. He said he fears Mexico is in danger of “becoming a different country, like Central America or South America – like Venezuela.”
Many Mexicans consider the 33-year-old INE to be one of the most important institutions in the country’s transition from seven decades of one-party rule. It replaced a fraud-riddled electoral system with a tightly regulated regime overseen by thousands of voter-idling workers who control virtually every aspect of state and federal elections.
López Obrador accuses the autonomous electoral institute of having turned into a bloated bureaucracy headed by well-paid civil servants, some of whom are close to the opposition. He says his plan to cut the INE’s budget and staff — part of a broader government austerity initiative — will save $150 million a year.
Many of López Obrador’s critics fear the law passed last week aims to keep his party in power in next year’s presidential election.
“He wants to change the constitution for his own benefit,” said Fabiola González, 53, a high school teacher who joined several friends on the march.
Lopez Obrador’s austerity plan changes Mexico
Still, López Obrador is constitutionally barred from re-election, and his party is widely viewed as likely to win the 2024 race — with or without the new law. Some analysts believe that López Obrador’s dislike of the electoral body stems from his resentment over his narrow defeat in the 2006 presidential election.
The electoral law has alarmed both the Mexican opposition and members of the US Congress.
“By approving President López Obrador’s proposal … Mexico’s Congress has jeopardized the future of his country’s democratic institutions,” said House and Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairs — Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Tex.) and Sen. Robert Menendez (DN .J.) – said last week. “Bringing Mexico back to its dark past of presidential-controlled elections not only turns back the clock on its democracy, but also on US-Mexico relations.”
Sunday’s demonstration attracted thousands of middle-class voters who are increasingly disillusioned with the president’s attacks on journalists, academics and other critics and his broadsides against the “neoliberal” economic policies of previous governments.
However, López Obrador remains popular, especially among the poor half of the population. He has raised social spending and the minimum wage, appealing to ordinary Mexicans with vernacular language and constant travel across the country – often by car or commercial airline.
Arturo Hernández, 53, who runs a tiny shop in Mexico City’s working-class suburb of Ecatepec, said the president’s attention to Mexicans like himself is a marked change from the past.
“For an indigenous person, a presidential salute is enormous,” he said. “We haven’t seen that before.”
And for all his concerns that López Obrador is following the path of authoritarian left leaders like Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez, the Mexican president has largely maintained his country’s orthodox economic policies and free trade agreements.
Hernández noted that apart from the deep recession triggered by the coronavirus pandemic, Mexico has enjoyed economic stability. “If not, there wouldn’t be so many cars,” he said. “There wouldn’t be that many Walmarts.”
The new law is expected to be quickly challenged in court. At Sunday’s demonstration in Mexico City, retired Chief Justice José Ramón Cossío urged the judges to declare the measure unconstitutional.
“We know the pressure you face from those who want to take over the Mexican electoral system,” he said.
For his part, López Obrador plans to counter Sunday’s protest in honor of the expropriation of foreign oil companies in 1938 with his own mega-demonstration in the Zocalo in three weeks.