Mexican president: Pro-democracy protests a ‘political striptease’

Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador on Monday downplayed mass pro-democracy protests that over the weekend rallied against his proposed political reforms.

In his daily morning address, López Obrador said the marches showed his opponents’ true colors.

“I think yesterday’s march was very important. It was a kind of political, public striptease of Mexican conservatism,” said López Obrador.

Mexicans marched in more than 30 cities, with the largest march in Mexico City, where organizers said more than half a million people showed up. López Obrador’s allies in the city government said fewer than 15,000 people showed up.

López Obrador said fewer than 60,000 people showed up, and drew a comparison to his rallies filling Mexico City’s main square, which he said fits up to 125,000 people.

Protesters’ core demand was for López Obrador to withdraw his proposal to disband the country’s electoral authority, the National Electoral Institute (INE), a mainstay of Mexican democracy for the last quarter century.

But López Obrador, who throughout his career has criticized the electoral authority, said defending the INE is just a smokescreen for his opponents.

“The risk of electoral fraud still exists,” he said. “So the INE [protest] was an excuse, a [false] flag, but in the end those who protested yesterday did it against the transformation that is happening in the country. They did it in favor of the privileges they had before the government I represent. They did it in favor of corruption; they did it in favor of racism, in favor of classism, in favor of discrimination. That’s the bottom line.”

López Obrador has a history of downplaying protests against his government, often blaming “neoliberals” and “conservatives” for the country’s ills.

Still, his political reform proposal would signify the deepest revamp of Mexico’s electoral system since the 1990s, when mass public protests forced the government to decentralize the electoral authority, leading to the end of a one-party system that ruled the country for more than 70 years.

The INE’s processes were essentially reverse-engineered from the multiple forms of electoral fraud that kept the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) in power for much of the 20th century, and elections since the late 1990s have generally been recognized as valid.

López Obrador lost the 2006 presidential election by a narrow margin and since then has raised doubts about the legitimacy of the electoral process, with the exception of the 2018 election, which he won.

While the electoral process itself has generally been recognized by independent observers, the lack of transparency in campaign funding has raised eyebrows.

That’s one of the core issues opponents have with López Obrador’s reform proposal, which would make INE council seats into elected positions, potentially putting in question councilmembers’ partisan independence.

“The massive protests throughout the country demonstrate deep concerns of many Mexican citizens that Lopez Obrador’s proposed reforms to the electoral institute would severely weaken its independence, politicize its work and risk undermining the country’s democracy,” said Maureen Meyer, vice president of programs at the Washington Office on Latin America, a progressive think tank focused on the region.

López Obrador’s reforms would also slash the budget for the INE and for political parties, which receive a bulk of their funding from the federal government.

According to López Obrador, Mexico’s electoral system costs upwards of $1.5 billion per year, a number he considers excessive.

The reform would also reduce the size of the two chambers of Congress, as well as the size of many state legislatures.

López Obrador’s proposals have rankled observers in the United States, who worry about the potential for democratic backsliding in Mexico.

“As we were reminded last week in the U.S., a healthy and vibrant democracy remains our best hope for bolstering the stability, security and prosperity of our country, and that of our neighbors and far off countries alike,” said Sen. Bob Menéndez (D-N.J.), the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

“That is why President Lopez Obrador’s potential dismantling of the National Electoral Institute in Mexico represents the latest pressing challenge to our campaign of restoring democratic values to the center of our foreign policy in the Western Hemisphere.”

López Obrador’s political and economic reforms have been a source of friction in the U.S.-Mexico relationship, as both countries grapple with growing regional migration, changing economic conditions and a wide array of bilateral issues, from the environment to drug smuggling.

Menéndez called on the Biden administration to turn its eye to Mexico in light of López Obrador’s reform proposal.

“We cannot afford to ignore the steady erosion of Mexico’s democracy and the rule of law under President Lopez Obrador, and I fully expect the Biden administration to ramp up efforts to support the protection of Mexico’s democratic actors and institutions,” said Menéndez. “History has proven that democratic societies are more peaceful, their people are more successful and safer, and it is in our national interest to champion these values.”