Mexico: hundreds of thousands of people demonstrate against López Obrador’s electoral reform

More than 500,000 people, according to estimates related to the conveners, have gathered this Sunday in Mexico City’s Zócalo square to protest against the reform of the electoral regulations promoted by the Mexican president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador.

Former congressman Fernando Belazunzarán gave the figure, an attendant to the demonstration, in defense of the National Electoral Institute (INE), which has dyed white and pink – colors symbol of the protest – the main square of the Mexican capital.

The first attendees were surprised by a large banner hung from the façade of the Congress by parliamentarians of the ruling party, Morena, with the photograph of former Secretary of Public Security Genaro García Luna and, behind him, the PAN party logo and below it the legend #GarcíaLunaNoSeToca paraphrasing the slogan of the protest, #ElINENoSeToca.

García Luna is on trial in the United States for collusion with the Sinaloa Cartel.

The protesters, backed by opposition parties, claim that the reform known as Plan B strips INE of key competencies and therefore demand that the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation declare the reform, approved last week, “unconstitutional”.

The ruling party has criticized that “what the right wing really wants is to shout that ‘García Luna and Felipe Calderón are not to be touched’, ‘corruption is not to be touched’, ‘the most influential is not to be touched'”, according to the leader of Morena, Mario Delgado.

“We cannot allow ourselves to return to the Mexico of the past when the damage done to the country by the neoliberal governments was extremely serious,” he argued while defending the right to protest.

“Everyone has the right to march,” he said.

With information from LGI