A white-skinned man beats on a drum that another brown-skinned man carries in front of him, sweaty and unsmiling, wearing a bandana to contain his sweat and a rope over his left shoulder to carry the drums.
It is the march against the electoral reform proposed by President Andrés Manuel López Obrador.
The legislative initiative, announced in April 2022, calls for easing the burden on the election administrator and guarantees clean and fraud-free elections.
Among its priorities are the popular election of electoral officials, the replacement of the electoral authority with an Institute for Elections and Consultations with only seven council members, the abolition of state electoral authorities, and the elimination of plurinominal legislatures.
However, the initiative was rejected by some of the López Obrador government’s opponents, who argued that it represented a step backward for Mexican democracy and did not guarantee the impartiality that the Electoral Institute, which is independent of the federal administration, should have under the law.
The gathering, called by political and economic opponents of the president, marched on Nov. 13 from the Angel of Independence on the Paseo de la Reforma to the Revolution Monument, where speakers led by academic José Woldenberg, head of the Federal Electoral Institute (IFE), laid out their plan for a political fight against the reform.
The autonomous institution, now transformed into the National Electoral Institute (INE), was the protagonist of the mobilization and was the focus of the demonstrators’ slogans dressed in white or pink, the latter color included in the logo and institutional communication of said institution.
Some of the slogans are “INE must not be touched”, “That’s why I came to defend INE,” and “I defend INE”.
However, the head of the Government Secretariat of the Administration of Mexico City, Martí Batres, reported a blank slate and several participants of around 12,000 people.
López Obrador, who advocates for electoral reform because the INE is not objective and Mexico’s political electoral system has repeatedly led to fraud, is one of the main actors in the rejectionist remarks during the mobilization.
PROTESTERS OCCUPY THE REFORMA
Anti-communism and anti-socialism are also themes of the rally.
“I’m too old to live under socialism. I am addicted to the luxuries of capitalism, like toilet paper, three meals a day, clean water, shoes, clean clothes, and my dog is my pet and not my dinner,” read one of the banners in white letters on a pink background.
Another idea that persists in the posters is that López Obrador, with his attack on democracy, wants to establish a dictatorship like in Nicaragua, Cuba, Venezuela, or Bolivia.
This is a risky approach, given that the Mexican president reached the National Palace, the seat of the federal executive, through the elections after receiving more than twice as many votes as his nearest competitor.
The opposition claims that the president’s reform is an attempt to seize control of the electoral arbitration in favor of his interests and those of his political sympathizers.
With golden balloons that look like birthday party balloons with the initials INE on them, images of the Virgin of Guadalupe, and anti-Obrador slogans (“We pay you your salary, and you insult us”), the nonconformists staged the event between 11:00 a.m. and 1:00 p.m. local time.
At the podium, Woldenberg defended the INE because it has allowed political plurality and stability in the country, and he celebrated the fact that the one-party system has been left behind, alluding to the decades in which the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), a state force, won all elections.
The intellectual described Mexican democracy as a “nucleus” but one destroyed by presidential power.
PRI member Enrique de la Madrid, son of former President Miguel de la Madrid, who plans to lead a possible opposition alliance as a presidential candidate in 2024, acknowledged in an interview with Sputnik that the INE could be improved but called for reserving this possible criticism for a time that is not as polarized as the one Mexico is currently experiencing.
“In this environment of polarization, the INE would disappear, and we cannot risk that.
There is self-criticism, but it is not the right time because we risk the INE being taken away from us,” he said.
“Weakening the INE is an attack on democracy, and whoever would do that would be rejected by a large part of the Mexican population,” he added.
Businessman Claudio X. González, who is pushing for an agreement among the national leaderships of the main opposition parties to field a unified candidacy for 2024, believes that only through unity can the opposition compete at the ballot box.
López Obrador, González said, “is doing a terrible job that is harming millions and millions of Mexicans, and he is also attacking our democracy and our freedoms, and that seems to me to be unacceptable, and that is what people are saying, the INE must not be touched.”
CALL TO CONTINUE THE MOBILIZATION
A group of supporters of López Obrador’s initiative with slogans against the National Action Party (PAN), the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD), and the PRI dared to participate in the demonstration despite their opposition to the majority.
Amid boos and brawls, they have turned away.
The main speech of the demonstration lasted only a few minutes, ten at most, as a lady walked to the exit of the rally.
From the podium, the speakers, united under the logo of Unidos, called for the event of Sunday, Nov. 13, to be seen only as a beginning.
And they propose tasks to continue the protest against the electoral reform, such as demanding a “no” from lawmakers, continuing to communicate positions in support of the INE through social networks, and marching again when the proposed law is voted in the Congress of the Union.
As they pass the Senate, the marchers hang their banners.
After a few hours of slogans that moved between soccer and classic Mexican songs, the Paseo de la Reforma is now empty, and the Revolution Monument’s esplanade empties.