MEXICO .- Some are party leaders or local legislators ; they are the right hand of some governors or social activists affiliated with political organizations; mayors, officials investigated by prosecutors, friends of leaders who decided to place them on the key lists to access a council … Even if they are not migrants!
It is about “false migrants ” that in the elections of June 6 could obtain a seat in the federal congress through the multi-member route ; that is, a figure that seeks to have representations of all kinds in the congress.
From 1977, by law, all political parties must draw up a list (known as multi-member) with candidates who will join Congress without being voted for or campaigning: only by the percentage of votes that the political institution obtains. The first names in the list from 1 to 10 are privileged and these names They are decided by the party.
In recent times, vulnerable groups such as indigenous people, the disabled or the gay community should be on those lists. In the case of migrants, their inclusion at the federal level is very recent.
Last February, the Electoral Tribunal of the Federal Judicial Power, after a long debate over a demand for various Mexicans abroad who asked for political rights, ordered the parties to include them in the electoral representation lists.
The National Electoral Institute (INE) replied that it was very hasty because it already had the Campaign times and the development of a regulation seemed a complicated task to him. However he did it and the result is, according to organizations of migrant leaders “a disaster.”
Mainly because it has allowed only with proof of having resided three months in The foreigner is enough to declare himself a migrant and, in the worst case, not even those documents have been provided by the candidates or it is simply not known who the people are because a data protection law may prevent it.
This last case is José Luis Ernesto Rodríguez Aguilar who is in the place of list number 3 of the Second Circumscription. Nothing is known about him. It is so unknown that it does not even appear in internet search engines.
Having the complete list of multi-member candidates for these elections is like looking for a needle in a haystack, according to Juan Carlos Guerrero, founder of the Chilangos Club in Los Angeles, who has taken on the personal challenge of “unmasking” those who pose as migrants to obtain a seat.
“When we locate them it is because the parties they want to give us the lists – he warns – because in the public data of the parties you can see but all multi-member in general, without specifying which minority they represent or why are they there: it is a trick of the parties to bring in their people who are not migrants. ”
This newspaper unsuccessfully requested the National Electoral Institute for the list of migrant representations that, in theory should be public on their website, but not found in the system.
Who are they?
Among the people who have been identified through Guerrero’s organization there are 50 ; of which, the majority are in positions 8.9 and 10 of the multi-member list. This means that they have very distant possibilities, if not null, of staying with a position. The others, those who are in place 3, 4 and 5, with more hope, are career politicians in Mexico.
“They are pseudomigrants” , qualifies Daniel Tacher, coordinator of the Binational Electoral Observatory of the Citizen Initiative for the Promotion of the Culture of Dialogue.
“They were able to prove a residence document simply because they have an apartment in Miami , in New York, Los Angeles or anywhere else in the United States, but they are not necessarily leaders of migrant communities. ”
Of these, Thatcher has highlighted the case of Maximiliano Barbosa Llamas, candidate de Morena by the First Circumscription and who is founder and president of the National Confederation of Agricultural Producers of El Barzón, an organization that for years has had a political agenda to occupy positions.
Mirna Zabeida Maldonado Tapia as a multi-member candidate for federal migrant deputy for Circumscription Number 2. “It is obvious that he has lived all his life in Mexico,” warns Guadalupe Gómez, president of the Federation of Zacatecan Clubs of Southern California.
According to the curriculum available on the website of the Chamber of Deputies, during the last 17 years the Zacatecan held positions in Mexico City as an IMSS nurse , district coordinator of the party in the state and as a federal legislator, which makes it practically impossible for her to have lived in the United States and to fully understand the needs of migrants to represent them.
“Los Political parties did not expect the electoral court to force them to include migrants in their multi-member lists just when they had already shared everything among them, it hurt their hearts to lose positions for their own and that’s why they’re cheating, ”says Gómez. “But that is unfair because migrants have very specific needs that only those of us who are here know and now we are going to continue the same.”
A review of the profiles of other migrants placed in the first multi-member places, revealed that some candidacies that should have been for Mexicans abroad were openly and cynically imposed on party leaders.
Notable among them are two top men in the Action Party National. The president of the organization in the State of Mexico, Jorge Ernesto Inzunza Armas, who has moved the opposition agenda to the bottom and to achieve this position must have risen with a constant presence in the entity that would have been impossible to have made a career as a migrant in another country.
Now he is at number 3 on the multi-member lists as if he were a lifelong migrant leader and was the authentic representative in the fifth constituency.
Another privileged member of the PAN is Eliseo Compeán Fernández , agribusiness administrator who is in fourth place on the list of the first constituency despite his solid political career in Chihuahua:
PAN State Councilor of 2003 to 2005; member of the State Youth Secretary of the State of Chihuahua 1998 to 2004; Municipal Youth Secretary of the party from 1998 to 2004; member of the Municipal Steering Committee; Municipal Trustee from 2004 to 2007; councilor of the Delicias Chihuahua city council and twice mayor, a position he holds to date.
Compeán Fernández was recently involved in a scandal when The Financial Intelligence Unit blocked his personal accounts and also those of the Delicias city hall on the grounds that the US had requested it for alleged money laundering; The mayor denied all the accusations and asked for a clarification, since the government of the neighboring country would have requested through an official letter to freeze the mayor’s bank accounts, as explained months ago by the Financial Intelligence Unit (UIF) of the Ministry of Finance.
Among the few cases that this has been able to reverse is the candidacy of Jorge Alberto Nordhausen Carrizales after the State Court of the Judicial Power of the The Federation did not prove his residence abroad because he had proof that he has resided in Campeche since 2012.
In public session not in person, by videoconference, the magistrates considered the grievances well founded because when analyzing a series of documents that Jorge Alberto Nordhausen Carrizales presented to prove his residence in the United States, it was concluded that these are only indications that he was abroad in various periods, but they do not show that he resides in that country.
On the contrary, there is evidence that he has resided in Campeche at least from the year 2012 to 2016, since in various documents presented by himself in previous electoral processes it is proven that he resides in that city, in addition to currently occupying a position for which it is a requirement to live in that place.
The Superior Chamber recalled in a press release that “the vulnerability suffered by the migrant community is directly related to residence abroad and, therefore, it is necessary that only Mexican people who live in other countries benefit from the affirmative measure that seeks to remedy the situation of disadvantage in which they find themselves. ”
After this, the response of the PAN surprised:“ He replaced Jorge Alberto Nordhausen by Cathya Nordhausen. In other words, he put the sister, ”said activist Guerrero. “It is clear to us that this battle against false migrants is only going to be in the courts and must be challenged over and over again.”
Norhausen is known from leaks to the local press that the The revoked multi-member candidacy was “raised early” (removed with political tricks) by Salvador Farías, mayor of Candelaria and current candidate of the PRI-PAN-PRD coalition for federal deputy for the second district, to whom the blue and white state board had promised it .
Since the creation of the multi-member candidacies, political scientists and critics of politics have demanded the almost personal use that is given to the parties. It has been used to position children, relatives and lovers or as consolation prizes as it is suggested now that it happens with Manuel Alejandro Torres Gómez, whom Morena placed in the place number 5 of the constituency Four after it was revealed that he had been a victim of the prosecution of the Mexico City .
In a recent statement, the Mexico City Attorney General’s Office (PGJ-CDMX) recognized that in previous administrations crimes were fabricated against former deputy Torres Gomez, for and politically favoring the PRD, as well as the then Delegate of Coyoacán, Mauricio Toledo Gutiérrez ”. This means that Manuel Torres Gómez has been closer to the politics of the city than to the United States.
Guadalupe Gómez, of the Zacatecan federation in Los Angeles, suggests that to avoid continuing “pretending at the expense of migrants while showing off the money they send, it would be better to establish a sixth district for the federal level that Mexicans abroad are the ones who vote for candidates who really represent them in the Congress of the Union. ”
The case Chilango
In Mexico City they will use the direct voting model for the first time in history to elect migrant deputies. Unlike the difficulties faced by the INE and the national political parties, the Electoral Institute of Mexico City has made the list of applicants with names and surnames, the party that nominates them, and proof of residence from the US state transparent. where they lived.
For some representatives of migrants in the capital, most of these candidates are unknown. They don’t get a lot of names like Verónica Puente, who goes for Morena; Raúl de Jesús Torres Guerrero, for the PAN; Andrea Kat Canto, for the PRI; Beatriz Guerrero Auna, from the Citizen Movement; Cecilia Miranda Mijangos, from PVEM; Sandy Choreño Rico, from the PRD or Sergio Roberto Guzmán Rodríguez, from Fuerza por México.
“In the recent debate I felt that they were not speaking to the community,” observed Israel Concha, founder of the organization of returnees New Comienzos who recently returned to the United States.
Mauricio Huerta, electoral counselor of Mexico City, observed that the referee in this contest saw his hands tied by r the laws and could not comment on the candidate selection processes for which he only had to demand three things: that the statutory mechanisms that each party be chosen, that they have a minimum residence of two years, license, electricity, vehicle or loans banks and that gender parity be respected.
“We could not do anything else because the law prevents it and in the end all the candidates were chosen by finger,” he said.
The counselor suggests that from now on transparent application mechanisms be sought. And, preferably, that the credential issued abroad is required with sufficient time, at least two or four years. “Some candidates were only months old”
On this occasion, he details: “It was the political parties that decided with standards that only they know what was asked of them and fell into simulations or fraud to apply outlaws and we say that we can only hope that the voters (42, 000 who registered for the Chilango vote) decide who represents them according to their profile. ”
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