He National Electoral Institute (INE) denied suspending the dissemination of the morning remarks of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador during the electoral process as requested Xóchitl Gálvez Ruizpresidential candidate of the Fuerza y Corazón por México (PAN-PRI-PRD) coalition, as advisors warned that it would affect citizens’ right of access to information.
After a harsh and long discussion between representatives of political parties, the councilors unanimously rejected the proposal made by the opposition presidential candidate and “appealed” to the responsibility of the President López Obrador not to do electoral statements.
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During the discussion, counselor Jaime Rivera acknowledged that the mornings have been used “frequently to influence competition between parties,” he even said that the INE Complaints and Reports Commission about twenty morning conferences have dropped due to the president’s electoral pronouncements; However, he said that Gálvez Ruiz’s proposal does not fit the criteria established by the Electoral Tribunal of the Judicial Branch of the Federation (TEPJF)a body empowered to study whether the president’s pronouncements influence the election, which is why he called for political responsibility.
“I do not support this project submitted to the General Council for consideration for the regulatory reasons and jurisdictional criteria set forth. At the same time, I want to rescue the symbolic value, which should not be negligible, of appealing to the political responsibility of those who occupy the highest spheres of public power,” said counselor Jaime Rivera.
The advisor Claudia Zavala He recalled that the Complaints and Complaints Commission, which he chairs, has ordered President López Obrador to go down 24 mornings for violating, from a preliminary perspective, equity in the electoral contest and asked the Court to rule on the issue.
“It seems important to me that the Electoral Tribunal can issue a definition in relation to these issues and obviously in relation to how they should be harmonized to ensure equity in the electoral contest, so that they are the political forces“, without the intervention of any public servant’s voice, those who enter the contest and the campaigns, and the electoral contest can be carried out under conditions of equity,” he expressed.
Counselor Arturo Castillo recalled that the Superior Chamber of the TEPJF reversed the decision of the Specialized Chamber of the TEPJF to order the suspension of the morning transition in Aguascalientes, Baja California, Durango, Quintana Roo, Tamaulipas and Puebla during the 2019 election and instead issued criteria to adjust morning conferences to the prohibitions established in the Constitution.
Given the rejection of his candidate’s proposal, Guadalupe Acosta Naranjorepresentative of the PRD before the General Council of the INE, announced that they will go to the Electoral Court to stop the interference of the President López Obrador in the election and threatened with citizen mobilizations in response to the refusal of the INE to suspend mornings.
“We are going to go to court, I have raised with our friends and with our colleague does not protect us, if the electoral bodies do not protect us we will have to call Mexican society again to mobilize If I were the candidate “I am not, nor do I know, I would never withdraw from the campaign. There is no level playing field and the authorities do not want to create a level playing field,” he said.