López Obrador violates electioneering ban to denounce vote buying in Mexico

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador broke the ban that prevented him from talking about the campaigns this Thursday to denounce the alleged vote-buying by the opposition in the northern state of Nuevo Leon and the inaction of the National Electoral Institute (INE).

Although the law forbids him to talk about elections before the June 6 elections, the president exhibited for the second consecutive day a card with which Adrian de la Garza, from the former Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), promises money if he wins the governorship of Nuevo Leon.

“How do you think I am going to remain silent if this is what has most damaged and prevented Mexico from having an authentic democracy? How am I going to remain silent in the face of vote-buying?” declared López Obrador in his morning press conference.

The president has lambasted his critics ahead of the largest elections in Mexico’s history on June 6, when nearly 93.5 million are called to vote for 500 federal deputies, 15 of 32 state governors, 30 local congresses, and 1,900 city councils.

One of the most hotly contested races will be in Nuevo León, considered the “crown jewel” of these elections as the richest state in the north of the country and home to the second most populated metropolitan area, Monterrey.

In this context, Lopez Obrador criticized the bimonthly “Mujer Fuerte” cards of 1,500 pesos (about 750 dollars) offered by De la Garza, who on Wednesday criticized the president’s interference, but defended that “it is not just giving away money, it is a social investment”.

“We have to denounce the delivery of expenses, of money, the threats, everything. We all have to help. These have to be the cleanest, freest elections in the history of Mexico, and we should not think that democracy will be guaranteed by the INE, the Trife (Electoral Tribunal)”, said the President.

The president has also criticized INE because it has only registered 32,343 voters abroad despite having a budget of 111 million pesos (about 5.5 million dollars).

The president has promised an electoral reform after the cancellation of two candidacies of his National Regeneration Movement (Morena), that of Raúl Morón for governor of Michoacán, and that of Félix Salgado Macedonio, accused of rape, for governor of Guerrero.

This Thursday, he reiterated that INE and the Electoral Tribunal, created in the PRI era, have “always been the most tenacious violators of the law and the most opposed to democracy.”

“The paradox is that the INE, instead of guaranteeing democracy, has been created and functions in fact to impede democracy. That is what we see because INE does not see this (vote-buying), they turn a blind eye,” he concluded.