Protesters fill Mexico City’s Zócalo on Sunday. Photo: Google

By KELIN DILLON

On Sunday, Feb. 18, thousands of people marched across Mexico in protest of  Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s (AMLO) controversial proposals to eliminate Mexico’s autonomous organizations such as the independent electoral monitoring body the National Electoral Institute (INE), sparking coverage from major international publications and outrage from López Obrador himself.

During his speech at Mexico City’s “March for Democracy” against government intervention in federal elections, former INE Director Lorenzo Córdova alleged that AMLO’s reforms are a “project of authoritarian regression” – all while carefully avoiding explicitly mentioning the federal executive by name.

“We spent more than 40 years building a staircase so that whoever had the votes could access the first floor and 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 go through it,” said Córdova at the time.

“A few days ago, a series of initiatives were presented again that, as was previously attempted so-called with Plan A and Plan B, seek to destroy the INE as we know it and, through a direct election of its councilors, and to control it politically,” added Córdova. “We cannot and will not allow that; Losing the INE is losing the main guarantee to have free elections and return to government control over the election.”

Córdova went on to characterize AMLO’s initiative to eliminate the INE and other autonomous organizations as a “setback to democracy.”

 The Mexico City police initially claimed that just 30,000 people attended the protest in the capital, a figure that the Mexico City government later adjusted to 90,000. However, the march’s organizers reported attendance of approximately 700,000 individuals on Sunday, marking a clear disparity between the government’s official turnout figures and external estimates as seen in prior protests held in Mexico City during López Obrador’s term.

The scale of Sunday’s event prompted major international publications like the New York Times, the U.K.’s Financial Times, France’s Le Figaro and Spain’s El Mundo and El País, amongst others, to issue reports on AMLO’s controversial proposed reforms.

In response, the federal executive took to his daily morning press conference on Monday, Feb. 19 to accuse the march’s attendees of being dissatisfied with his reforms as they can no longer “benefit from corruption.”

“They disguise themselves as democrats when they were the most tenacious violators of the people’s rights, they say, we are going to defend our democracy, what is their democracy?” said AMLO at the time. “Well, the one that functions only as a parapet when in reality it’s the dominion of a corrupt oligarchy.”