The INE sanctions Morena 4.5 million pesos for withholding 10% of the salary of municipal employees in Texcoco

The Secretary of Education of Mexico, Delfina Gómez, and the president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, after a rally in the State of Mexico in 2019.

The National Electoral Institute (INE) has agreed this Friday to impose a sanction of more than 4.5 million pesos on Morena for a party financing network orchestrated in the Texcoco City Council between 2013 and 2015, when the current Secretary of Education, Delfina Gómez, was municipal president.

With this system, which consisted of deducting 10% from the salaries of hundreds of public workers, a current of the training of Andrés Manuel López Obrador in the State of Mexico raised about 13 million, according to the investigation of the electoral authority.

The general council of the organism chose, with 10 votes in favor and one against, to limit the fine to the part of the income not reported.

More information

• 10% of Morena's salary: the INE points to Delfina Gómez for a financing network of the party in Texcoco

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Councilor Ciro Murayama spoke openly of "an illegal financing scheme." “The operation consisted of withholding 10% of the salary of 550 public employees of Texcoco. Later, they paid Morena's suppliers and did not render accounts to the INE ”. The resolution debated, of about 240 pages, accounts for this procedure. First, employees signed a letter announcing their intention to voluntarily give up part of their salary. “I come to request that [...] until my employment relationship ends, in my own right and voluntarily, a discount of 10% of my salary be given to me to be transmitted to the Political Action Group, which must be granted to C. María Victoria Anaya Campos, in order to suit my particular interests ”, reads one of those documents.

The money deliveries, made by the City Council every 15 days, depended on that official, Anaya Campos, an employee of the City Council hired as a position of "trust" of the municipal president, as can be seen in the corporation's labor relations table. The analysis of the money orders directly exposes the Secretary of Education because they included, among others, his signature.

Delfina Gómez, who in recent days has been at the forefront of the Government's political action for the return to classes, assumed the position of mayor in 2013 and left it in 2015 to compete in the federal elections of that year, which involved his entry into the Congress of Deputies. During his tenure in the Texcoco City Council, his career accelerated while the National Regeneration Movement consolidated itself as a party. The INE investigation, which began as a result of a complaint filed by the National Action Party (PAN) in April 2017, did not, however, elaborate on political considerations -that is, that this financing network served to benefit the constitution of Morena- and focuses on the control of these contributions.

The agency's technical unit found indications that at least part of the withholdings from municipal employees' salaries ended up in financing that electoral campaign, but it did not prove that these sums were directly linked to the candidacy of Delfina Gómez. Yes, on the other hand, it proved that “the suppliers that had a commercial relationship with the national political party Morena received resources from the salary withholdings to the workers of the Municipality of Texcoco and the DIF System [Integral Development of the Family] Texcoco for an amount of $ 2,114,612.53 (two million one hundred fourteen thousand six hundred twelve pesos 53/100 MN) ”.

During the procedure, the Secretary of Education alleged that "due process had been breached, as factual and legal situations were established outside the complaint and not removable from the investigation."

The INE, which has been immersed in a fight with the ruling party for months and has received harsh criticism from the president, also gave a view of the resolution brought to debate at the Attorney General's Office of the State of Mexico, “for the behaviors that could constitute crimes electoral ”;

to the Special Prosecutor for Electoral Crimes, "for allegedly consecutive conduct of crimes in electoral matters";

and the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU), "for conduct that could constitute crimes within its sphere of competence."

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