(Mexico City) Mexico experienced a first electoral warm-up on Sunday with a demonstration in defense of “democracy”, the day when the government candidate for the next presidential election, of which she is the big favorite, Claudia Sheinbaum, made it official his candidacy.
Twelve days before the official opening of the campaign for the June 2 vote, tens of thousands of people gathered in Mexico City on Zocalo, the largest square in Latin America, to denounce the recent constitutional revision project of the President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador.
“We’re not touching democracy!” “, warned the speaker of the day, the former president of the National Electoral Institute (INE) Lorenzo Cordova, under the windows of the National Palace, the seat of the presidency.
He notably denounced the plan to have members of the judiciary elected by popular vote: “We seek to ensure that elections are organized and that justice is administered by civil servants and judges elected with the support of the majority party.”
“We must vote massively in the elections,” he added during this rally.
“Our fear is that authoritarianism will grow, that people will no longer have options to decide freely, that our vote will not be respected,” said one demonstrator, Gabriela Osuna Lever, 61, who also mentions the danger “criminal organizations”.
The very popular President Lopez Obrador had already described this gathering on Friday as a “demonstration to defend corruption”. The head of state regularly attacks established bodies such as the INE and the Supreme Court.
“For the first time, a woman president”
This same Sunday, the one who is best placed according to the polls to win the presidential election, the candidate of the left power Claudia Sheinbaum, officially registered her candidacy before the INE.
PHOTO QUETZALLI NICTE-HA, REUTERS
Candidate Claudia Sheinbaum
“For the first time in history, after 200 years, a progressive woman will arrive at the presidency of the Republic,” she said as she left the INE in front of her supporters who chanted “president!” President! “.
“It is the symbol that we are leaving macho Mexico behind us,” added the granddaughter of Jewish migrants from Bulgaria and Lithuania. “A woman from the Chiapas plateaus [dans le sud] told me: “you are the unfulfilled dream of our grandmothers”. This fills me with responsibility and enormous pride.”
In the neutral and serious tone that characterizes her, the trained scientist presented her program in 15 points.
She promised an “austere government that will maintain the financial and fiscal discipline” of her mentor Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador.
As echoed by the Zocalo demonstrators, she is committed to guaranteeing freedoms.
On the thorny theme of security, the former mayor of Mexico City, who is pleased to have reduced the number of homicides in the capital, promised to consolidate the National Guard, coordination with the prosecution and to maintain daily meetings of the security cabinet.
She praised the salient points of the outgoing president’s record, such as the increase in the minimum wage without impact on inflation, “the strength of the peso” which has appreciated significantly against the dollar and the “reduction of poverty and some inequalities “.
Buoyed by the popularity of the president, Mme Sheinbaum is well ahead in the polls of the candidate of a coalition of three opposition parties, Xochitl Galve (64% against 31%).
The two women, competing to become the first president in Mexican history, met with Pope Francis in Rome last week.
A third candidate, Jorge Álvarez Máynez, of the Citizen Movement party (center left), tops out at 5%.