MEXICO CITY.- Tens of thousands of people gathered this Sunday in the Zócalo, Mexico’s main square, to demand a “free vote” in the presidential elections on June 2.
The participants denounced the attempt by the president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, to orchestrate a “state election” that favors the official candidate Claudia Sheinbaum, who leads the race with more than 60% support, according to various polls.
“Today, from power, whoever reached that first floor by the free will of the citizens intends to destroy that staircase so that no one else can walk it,” said Lorenzo Córdova, former president of the National Electoral Institute (INE) and main speaker of the demonstration.
The opposition assures that López Obrador seeks to reduce the capabilities and autonomy of the Mexican electoral authority, the INE, through a series of reforms that he sent to Congress.
Also, he accuses the president of using the state apparatus to promote Sheinbaum, whose main rival is the center-right candidate with indigenous roots, Xóchitl Galvez.
The crowd gathered in the Zócalo, made up mainly of middle-class citizens who came as families or in groups carrying banners and wearing pink and white clothing, responded to the speech with phrases such as “López Out!” or “Let the Zócalo vibrate, long live the free vote”!
“Our democracy is not touched,” read a banner displayed on the platform where several leaders gave speeches.
López Obrador “intervenes every day in the elections, that is the reason why I believe there is a state election,” said Arturo Sánchez, a 64-year-old retiree who attended accompanied by his wife and daughter.
In his speech, Córdova insisted that the current government has been subjecting other institutions that guarantee the balance of powers and oversight, such as the Supreme Court or autonomous regulatory bodies, to “permanent harassment.”
“Today, because they make them uncomfortable, those in power seek to disappear, subordinate or capture them,” said the speaker, who reiterated the citizen and non-partisan nature of the demonstration.
“The current government does not want to have anyone overshadow it, in a democracy there have to be checks and balances,” commented Julio Rodríguez Trigueros, a citizen who came to the march along with his two teenage children.
Source: With information from AFP
