In an interview with Real America News, Lorenzo Córdova, president counselor of the National Electoral Institute (INE) of Mexico, said that his priority before leaving office in April 2023 is “to maintain trust in the institution because it has been earned day by day and can be lost very easily”.
I immediately asked myself, which confidence?
In reality, they have not realized that millions of Mexicans do not trust the heads of the INE, particularly Córdova and the counselor Ciro Murayama, to conduct clean and transparent elections; at least not since 2006, when the then IFE (now INE since 2014) declared winner of the PAN candidate, Felipe Calderón, in an election marked by irregularities in the counting of ballots and by the protests registered during election day.
Regarding that election, the documentary “Fraud: Mexico 2006” shows that Felipe Calderón’s brother-in-law had been hired to operate the vote count database for said electoral process.
“Haiga been like haiga been”, Calderón replied to a television station when questioning his “triumph”. The then candidate Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) always maintained that there was fraud and irregularities, both during the campaign period and in the election of 49. Important intellectuals such as Lorenzo Meyer and Carlos Monsiváis have always criticized the clarity of the process.
Due to the narrow margin between Calderón and López Obrador in the election, supporters of the PRD —the party in which he was a member at that time the current president—requested a count “vote by vote, box by box”, but the electoral court said that the demand was inadmissible, while the IFE validated Calderón as the winner. Immediately, the new President proclaimed a ‘War on Drugs’ that could not be stopped and has left hundreds of thousands dead and disappeared in the nation.
Already in 2018, Roberto Madrazo, the PRI candidate in 2006, declared that in the elections of that year, López Obrador was the candidate that he was winning in his electoral records. He stressed that if the IFE had done the requested count, surely AMLO would have won.
In the elections of 2006, the Commission of Investigation MONEX, made up of the Chamber of Deputies, had shown that at that time the candidate Enrique Peña Nieto (EPN) had exceeded the campaign spending limit by times, but the IFE seemed not to have found out.
Years later, the National Electoral Institute discovered a new company that illegally gave one thousand four hundred million pesos to the campaign of EPN during the electoral process of 2012, but they were not reported. At that time, the INE simply sanctioned the PRI for not reporting 16 million pesos. This does not include an accusation by Emilio Lozoya against Luis Videgaray and EPN for the illegal channeling of one billion pesos from the Odebrecht company, another illegal act, but from which the INE seemed to pass overnight.
In the elections of 2018, the third time AMLO ran, although there were attempts to fraud, the large number of voters who came out to participate and the non-participation of EPN in an attempt to fraud so that a candidate from the PRI or the PAN would take the victory, were two of the elements that are mentioned and for which the INE could not do anything to prevent López Obrador from reaching the National Palace.
This was not the case in the State of Mexico in 2018, where the candidate Delfina Gómez, of the National Regeneration Movement (Morena) received a 2-1 support over the strongest opponent, but finally they gave victory to Alfredo Del Mazo, of the PRI.
The analyst Alfredo Jalife-Rahme has called Córdova enemy of democracy for having boycotted the last referendum of 2021, where he practically did nothing to encourage people to vote, and placed fewer boxes than are used in an election general, which is why many people were unable to cast their vote.
Another recent event that points to the INE as unreliable was the elimination of 49 Morena candidates for irregularities in their campaign spending, while Samuel García, a candidate for Movimiento Ciudadano in Monterrey, he let him continue until he won, and simply fined him for having illegally received millions in donations.
As if that were not enough, the INE refused to lower his salary as established by the Constitution: that no public official can earn more than the president of Mexico; Córdova and dozens of councilors earn much more than the President, some up to three times more.
On the other hand, in recent months journalists and communicators who criticize opposition from the current administration. One of the cases was that of the journalist Miguel Arzate, who in December of 2020 asked the president in a morning about the union of the three parties PRI, PAN, PRD; the PRD complained and the INE investigated the communicator, to the point of asking the Tax Administration Service (SAT) for his tax information to see if he received money from any party for asking questions.
In similar situations, but which lead to harassment, the journalist Alina Duarte, with an inclination towards the 4T, reported on her social networks that on several occasions INE staff has gone to her house to question her about what she posts on her social networks.
While Erick Gutiérrez, director of SinLinea.mx, is being accused of “gender violence” for simply responding to a tweet from the Morena deputy, Andrea Chávez, who was replying to a tweet from a PRD deputy.
According to Gutiérrez, the PRD deputy published on her networks that the Economic Culture Fund (FCE) should not be dedicated to promoting reading. Gutiérrez responds to Chávez in reference to the PRD deputy’s tweet that: “they are terrified of having an educated and informed people.” For this reason he has to pay fines, take classes and is being forced to apologize for 15 days publicly on his networks with a text that the INE itself will write. In addition, Gutiérrez will have to register for three years in a register of people found guilty of gender violence.
As if that is not enough, this week Counselor Córdova appeared in some texts with Alejandro Moreno Cárdenas (Alito), president of the PRI, where he exchanged political favors with the disputed PRI leader, accused of illicit enrichment by the Campeche prosecutor’s office.
With all those situations and controversies in which the INE counselor has been involved, and there are more, to say that his priority in this last year is to “seek to maintain the trust of the institution” is mockery for Mexicans who seek a true democracy and not that the electoral system installed by the neoliberal regime continues to be perpetuated until 2018.
This Thursday, Córdova will give the keynote address “Mexico is where you are: the growing importance of the vote of Mexicans abroad”, to kick off io aa one more edition of LéaLa, Book Fair in Spanish and Literary Festival in Los Angeles.
Agustín Durán is editor of the Local section of Real America News, in Los Angeles. @agustinduranLA – agustin.duran@Real America News.com