MEXICO CITY, Feb 26 (Reuters) – Scores of people gathered in Mexico on Sunday to condemn government moves to reduce electoral authority as a threat to democracy, in what appeared to be the largest protests to date. against the administration of President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador.
Organizers said more than 500,000 people turned out in Mexico City, with video footage on social media showing the central Zocalo square filled with protesters, who also spilled into nearby streets. A police officer nearby said he had heard a figure of half a million, while others gave lower estimates.
The government in Mexico City, which is controlled by Lopez Obrador’s party, said 90,000 people took part.
Mexico’s Congress on Wednesday approved a major overhaul of the National Electoral Institute (INE), an independent body that Lopez Obrador has attacked as corrupt and inefficient.
The 69-year-old president denied his changes would weaken Mexico’s democracy. Critics have vowed to take the legislation to the Supreme Court, which slashes INE’s budget and staff as well as strips it of its responsibilities.
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Veronica Echevarria, a 58-year-old psychologist from Mexico City at the protest, said she fears that Lopez Obrador’s INE shake-up is a bid by the president to stay in power. He denied it.
“We are fighting to defend our democracy,” said Echevarria, wearing a hat with the words “Hands off the INE.”
He and thousands of others gathered in the Zocalo on Sunday morning, many of them holding Mexican flags and wearing pink, the color of INE. Cries of “Viva Mexico!” and “Lopez out!” rang from time to time as the mass of people increased.
The Zocalo has over the years hosted many of the rallies that Lopez Obrador has faced, both as president and during his long career as a scourge of the Mexican establishment opposition.
INE and its predecessor played a key role in creating a pluralistic democracy that in 2000 ended decades of one-party rule, according to many political analysts.
Fernando Belaunzaran, an opposition politician who helped organize the protests, argued that the INE changes weaken the electoral system and increase the risk of disputes clouding the 2024 elections when the Lopez Obrador’s successor will be chosen.
“Usually presidents try to have governance and stability for their successors, but the president creates uncertainty,” Belaunzaran said. “He’s playing with fire.”
Mexican presidents can only serve one six-year term.
Belaunzaran said on Twitter that more than 500,000 people gathered in the capital on Sunday to oppose the INE overhaul. He said that the demonstrations took place in more than 100 towns.
Protests were held in states including Jalisco, Yucatan, Nuevo Leon, Queretaro, Guanajuato and Veracruz, according to news reports and footage broadcast on social media.
At least 22,000 people gathered in Nuevo Leon’s capital Monterrey, the newspaper Excelsior said, citing local authorities. Another 20,000 took to the streets in the center of Jalisco’s capital, Guadalajara, the Milenio news network reported.
Angel Garcia, a 50-year-old protester in Mexico City, said the demonstrations were also an appeal to the Supreme Court to rule the INE overhaul as unconstitutional.
If Mexico does not protect the INE, its democracy will be sent “back to the past,” argued Garcia, a lawyer.
“It’s now or never,” he said.
Lopez Obrador, a leftist who argued that he was robbed of the presidency twice before he finally won a landslide victory in the 2018 election, argued that the INE was too expensive and biased in favor of his opponents. The institute denied this.
The president framed Sunday’s protests as a partisan attempt by the opposition to undermine his government.
According to INE, the fixing of the president violates the constitution, restricts its independence and eliminates thousands of jobs dedicated to the protection of the electoral process, making it difficult to hold free and fair elections.
Lopez Obrador, whose approval ratings are still running at 60% or higher in opinion polls, has also weakened other autonomous bodies that check his power on the grounds that they are a scumbag of the public and opposed to his political project.
He said his INE shake-up would save $150 million a year.
Polls show the president’s National Regeneration Movement (MORENA), which in just a few years has become the dominant force in Mexico, is a strong favorite to win the 2024 elections.
Antonio Mondragon, a retired protest dentist in Mexico City who voted for Lopez Obrador in 2018, said people are fed up with the president behaving like a “dictator.”
“We have to go back to democracy,” said the 83-year-old Mondragon, “because people are crazy.”
Reporting by Dave Graham Additional reporting by Diego Ore and Valentine Hilaire Editing by Josie Kao, Diane Craft and Chris Reese
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