More than 100 deputies of Morena demand that Salgado Macedonio's candidacy be withdrawn after accusations of rape

A group of women demonstrate in Guerrero against the candidate Félix Salgado Macedonio.Dassaev Téllez / Cuartoscuro

More than a hundred deputies from Morena signed a joint letter addressed to the party's leadership to withdraw the candidacy of Félix Salgado Macedonio to the government of Guerrero.

The letter was also ratified by another hundred councilors, councilors and supporters of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador.

Morena's women made it clear that there is no place in the party for abusers and expressed their rejection of Salgado Macedonio going ahead with his candidacy for the June elections of this year, after it became known that the candidate has two accusations of rape against him.

One in 1998 against a young minor and another in 2016 against a worker from the newspaper

La Jornada de Guerrero

, when the politician was director of the newspaper.

“We will not be the ones who go out to defend the indefensible when we seek the vote in favor of the candidates for whom there are doubts about their profile and probity, even if they have won through a survey, but without having honor and gender awareness. that today all participants should be required to run for election, "says the letter promoted by legislator Wendy Briceño and other deputies.

The political storm unleashed by the candidacy of Salgado Macedonio within the party has forced Morena's Honesty and Justice Commission to open an ex officio procedure against the licensed senator and former mayor of Acapulco between 2006 and 2008. “The accusation against Félix Salgado It is very serious and if it is true it deserves even prison.

The issue is that it comes out in this electoral context and that raises suspicions ... We want due process to be respected.

That there are no lynchings, but that there is also no impunity ”, assures the secretary of the Women of Morena, Carol Arriaga.

Although the Honesty Commission does not have any authority to investigate the complaints of violation against the candidate - an obligation of the Guerrero Prosecutor's Office -, it could remove the politician from the electoral race until the justice resolves the case.

"What the party has to do is urge the authorities to carry out an exhaustive investigation, but that does not mean that Morena does not take a clear and forceful position while the authority investigates," says Briceño, president of the Equality Commission in the Chamber low.

The Guerrero Prosecutor's Office announced, through a statement, that it will review the investigation folder against the candidate for governor of Guerrero to determine if the accusation for rape is appropriate.

In an interview with

Aristegui Noticias

, the former Guerrero prosecutor, Xavier Olea, pointed out that the case never came before the judge because the current governor, Héctor Astudillo (PRI), asked him in 2018 not to request an arrest warrant against Salgado Macedonio.

The Guerrero Prosecutor's Office has now opened an investigation against Olea to determine if he was disregarded in his duties.

Last December, the National Electoral Institute (INE) approved the initiative '3 of 3 against violence' in order to prevent and eradicate political violence against women and prevent any contestant from having open causes for rape, abuse, harassment or failure to pay child support.

All parties approved the declaration and committed to comply with it.

"This would have to speed up the Guerrero Prosecutor's Office, but the Honesty Commission cannot wait because electoral times are already running and the replacement should be done very quickly," says Wendy Briceño.

Morena's general secretary, Citlali Hernández, acknowledged that the accusations and accusations are delicate.

"They should not go unnoticed and they should be taken seriously," he said through his Twitter account a few days ago.

"We are doing what no other party would have done," adds Carol Arriaga when speaking about the internal investigation.

"We ask that there be a statement by Senator Félix Salgado as a moral principle, not a legal one, that proves his innocence because it is something very serious," he says.

The licensed senator has not commented on the letter and has limited himself to saying in recent weeks that "if there is a complaint against me, let it be investigated."

The letter from the Morenista legislators was supported by more than 3,000 signatures on the Change.org platform.

Meanwhile, this Tuesday in Chilpancingo, in the south of the country, there was a demonstration in front of the Guerrero Prosecutor's Office to protest the treatment given to the complaint against the candidate, kept in a drawer for more than four years.

"A rapist will not be a governor," the protesters' posters read.

In parallel, another mobilization, mainly of women, took to the streets of the state capital in favor of the candidate.

"Whoever is a candidate for Morena must have the minimum ethical and moral conditions and an honest way of living: If there is no gender peace, there can be no social peace," Briceño claims.

"Morena has to be consistent with its own platform and we are going to continue pressing for that to be the case," concludes the deputy.