Andrés Manuel López Obrador, during a press conference, Presidency of Mexico HANDOUT / EFE
The complaints about the partisan use of Andrés Manuel López Obrador's morning press conferences have escalated to the international sphere. First it was the National Electoral Institute (INE), which a month ago ordered the withdrawal of one of the conferences for "disseminating the Government's achievements." Now the complaints about the president's interference in the electoral campaign have reached the Organization of American States (OAS). The leaderships of both the PAN and the Citizen Movement (MC) presented complaints to the electoral observers mission of the organization this weekend.
“Every morning, from the National Palace, making use and abuse of public resources, it seems more like the campaign manager of Morena's party than the head of the Mexican state.
And here in our country that cannot be done, it is clearly forbidden, ”said Marko Cortés, the national leader of the PAN.
Since April 6, two months before the federal and local elections that will renew the two Chambers as well as 15 governorships, the electoral ban came into force, which includes the prohibition of using the platform of its morning press conferences as a proselytizing speaker of the Government or to launch attacks on the opposition or support for Morena.
More information
The INE orders López Obrador to withdraw the morning conference on Friday for failing to comply with the electoral ban
Conservatism and corruption: López Obrador's veins to campaign without seeming to do so
López Obrador fully enters the campaign
On the same day that the ban began, López Obrador stressed that despite the ban on naming a name, a party or a campaign issue, he did not intend to give up talking about corruption and conservatism.
In this way, the legal limits imposed in the campaign are skirted to continue fighting the political battles with which, day by day, the president sets the agenda from his morning speeches.
The complaints of the opposition parties to the OAS are precisely the result of this new strategy by López Obrador. Shielding his fight against corruption, last week he accused Morena's rival candidates who lead the Nuevo León government polls of vote buying or campaign financing fraud. A statement supported hours later by the Attorney General's Office (FGR) itself, which announced the opening of an investigation into Samuel García, from the Citizen Movement, and Adrián de la Garza, candidate of the alliance between PRI and PRD.
Asked about it at a press conference, López Obrador did not hesitate to frame his accusations in the supposed terrain of what is allowed by the electoral ban, wrapping himself once again in the banner of the fight against corruption: “But how can I not have what to see Of course I am, of course I am, if I made it known here, if it is in the public domain, I am saying it, we cannot be complicit in the fraud ”.
However, the president's behavior provoked the first movements of the opposition before the OAS. That same week, the PRI candidate for governor of Nuevo León, Adrián de la Garza, visited the organization's secretary general, Luis Almagro, to denounce López Obrador's interference. The complaint, for now, will be added to the portfolio of the electoral observer mission of the organization, which for the fifth consecutive time will review the Mexican elections on the ground.
The first wake-up call for skipping the electoral regulations came just the second week of the campaign.
The INE ordered to erase a morning where the president boasted of the social support that the Government is distributing in the poor states of the south of the country.
The Presidency agreed to the request and withdrew the video.
The INE justified its warning by underlining that “during electoral campaigns and until election day, refrain from disseminating government achievements, including social programs and beneficiaries, public works and even issuing any type of information that may affect the electoral preferences of the citizens ”.
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