Mexico’s president rejects mass protest against electoral reform

Mexicocity MEXICO CITY – Mexico’s president on Monday brushed off a major demonstration against his plan to reform the country’s electoral authority, calling it a “racist” and “classical” protest and defying his opponents with a bigger protest.

President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador likened Sunday’s protest in Mexico City to “political nudity” by his opponents, and reiterated his assertion that his proposal to cut off the National Electoral Institute (INE) The budget and changing how its board of directors is chosen would strengthen democracy rather than weaken it, as critics have argued.

“They did it in the interest of corruption, in the interest of racism, class and discrimination,” Lopez Obrador said at a regular press conference.

The president, who spent part of the briefing questioning the Democratic credentials of the prominent marchers, estimated between 50,000 and 60,000 people.

Organizers said hundreds of thousands took part in the rally, which was one of the largest against Lopez Obrador’s policies since the leftist took power four years ago.

Lopez Obrador has long criticized the country’s electoral authorities, including accusing them of helping engineer his defeats when he ran for president in 2006 and 2012.

He said the reform was necessary to protect the Mexican elections from fraud, calling the criticism “unfounded”.

The chief argues that his plan will make INE More democratic by allowing the public to vote for its board of directors.

But the plan calls for candidates to be brought to the board of directors by the legislative, judicial and executive branches of government, which critics see as a power grab by the president, due to his influence over those bodies.

wisdom Morena The party lacks the two-thirds majority in Congress needed for constitutional reform in INE.

However, some analysts say he could find votes with the support of lawmakers in the opposition Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), the party that has ruled Mexico for decades and which López Obrador has long attacked as corrupt.