The INE defines Macedonio's candidacy amid pressure from Morena and a setback from the Electoral Tribunal

Félix Salgado Macedonio leads a rally in front of the Electoral Court of Mexico Sáshenka Gutiérrez / EFE

The National Electoral Institute (INE) has received this Sunday the notification of the justice on the candidacies of Morena to the governorships of Guerrero and Michoacán that the organism contested two weeks ago for irregularities in the pre-campaign expenses.

Among them, that of Félix Salgado Macedonio, a veteran politician close to Andrés Manuel López Obrador and denounced for rape, has become a case that has caused outrage in society, malaise within the ruling party and has been used by the same president to campaign and lash out at his adversaries.

Salgado appealed the cancellation of his list and last Friday the Electoral Tribunal of the Federal Judicial Power returned the file to the INE for it to reconsider its opinion.

Amid growing pressure from Morena's apparatus and frontal attacks from some leaders, the body must define the candidacy within 48 hours.

Added to that is the setback he received from the president himself.

The magistrate who presides over the Superior Chamber of the institution, José Luis Vargas Valdez, recalled that the INE ruling on Salgado Macedonio and Morena's candidate in Michoacán, Raúl Morón, “denied the records of the candidates proposed by the party due to the non-compliance in the delivery time of the expense reports, which implied the affectation of the fundamental right to vote and be voted ”.

“However,” he added in a position published on social networks, “before imposing a sanction of that magnitude, the authority must guarantee the rights of due defense to those who may be affected, which seems to me that on this occasion it didn't happen ”.

In the opinion of the president of the chamber, he considers that the “supervisory authority incurred in violation of due process, because it did not call the candidates so that they could defend themselves and express what was legally appropriate due to failure to deliver the reports attributed to them, violating with this is their guarantee of audience ”.

The National Electoral Institute is not only preparing to take a resolution on the case with this correction on the table, but also with the pressure of the Morena militants who gathered at the doors of the organization in Mexico City led by Salgado Macedonio and Mario Delgado, national leader of the training.

“We are outside the INE demanding that the freedom of the people of Mexico to choose be respected.

Companions of Morena, we invite you to join, to close ranks.

It is time to unite and summon the people of Mexico because our democracy is at risk! ”Delgado wrote on Twitter.

The party's candidate for the Guerrero government arrived this Sunday after leaving Acapulco early Saturday morning with a caravan of supporters.

On Saturday, Salgado's attempts to intimidate the electoral authority crossed a new frontier when the politician threatened the institution with its dissolution.

“The inspection is carried out by the National Electoral Institute [...] the INE has superpowers.

Then, it will be necessary to legislate on that, including on the permanence or not of the INE.

I say that the INE has already complied and this INE must disappear and give life to another one committed to equity, committed to impartiality, ”said the politician, whose candidacy generated the resounding rejection of the feminist movement and raised the tension within the party itself .

However, Morena's apparatus, led by López Obrador, remained faithful to Macedonio and did not yield a millimeter in his defense.

They also redoubled criticism of the electoral authority, trying to present it as a conservative institution, as the president emphasized, and linked to past administrations.

The Secretary of the Interior, Olga Sánchez Cordero, caught their attention this week by appealing to an impartial arbitrator.

INE President Counselor Lorenzo Córdova replied with these words: “Today it has been said that the referee must be discreet and neutral.

I totally agree!

But it must be added: being discreet and neutral does not mean being ignorant and indifferent to violations of the law, but quite the opposite;

Faced with this, it must be strict and punctual ”.

Subscribe here

to the

of EL PAÍS México and receive all the informative keys of the current situation of this country