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The Electoral Court ratifies the fine of more than four million pesos to Morena for irregular financing

2022-01-13T20:22:36.822Z


The party withheld for three years 10% of the salary of public workers in Texcoco when the current Secretary of Education, Delfina Gómez, was municipal president


Delfina Gómez and López Obrador during an act in the State of Mexico, in 2019.Diego Simón

The Electoral Court of the Judicial Power of the Federation (TEPJF) has ratified this Wednesday the fine of 4,529,000 pesos (more than 190,000 euros) that the National Electoral Institute (INE) imposed in September on Morena, the political party of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, for an irregular financing network carried out between February 2013 and July 2015 in Texcoco (State of Mexico), when the current Secretary of Education, Delfina Gómez, was municipal president. During the time that the system lasted, 10% of the salary of hundreds of local public workers was withheld, more than two million pesos —according to the INE investigation— that served to pay for Morena's training.

The Superior Chamber of the TEPJF unanimously voted to sanction the party, "for having omitted the report of income in the years 2014 and 2015, from the use of a parallel financing scheme to support its ordinary activities, by withholding a percentage of the salary of the workers of the municipality of Texcoco and of the Comprehensive Development System for the Family (DIF) of that municipality”, according to the statement released by the agency.

Gómez was part of the Political Action Group at the time, a branch of Morena in the state.

“This organization presumably carried out charitable activities for society.

However, it was proven that 2,264,612 pesos were used for the benefit of the denounced party [Morena] for its ordinary operation, for which it was intended to hide in this way the real destination of the resources withheld from the workers of the municipality”, clarifies the resolution.

However, the Secretary of Education has been free of charges when considering the body that the only fiscal responsible for the act is Morena, "a concrete and direct benefit was not proven in favor of the electoral campaign for deputy of the citizen Delfina Gómez Álvarez" and "the behaviors for which they are pointed out must be known in a procedure other than the inspection procedure."

In the face of Morena's protests over an alleged lack of evidence, the TEPJF has argued that "it is common that in sanctioning procedures in which a network is used to hide a parallel source of financing, there is no direct evidence to prove the reported infraction. ”. For this reason, he considers that the information is proven through bank transfers, statements in the media, "as well as the fact that the defendant Delfina Gómez Álvarez has accepted that the resources withheld from the workers would be to support the aforementioned political party."

The case jumped in 2017 when the PAN (National Action Party), now in opposition, filed a complaint against the Secretary of Education in which she was accused of deducting a percentage of the salary of Texcoco public workers to finance the constitution of Brunette. At that time, Gómez was a candidate for the Government of the State of Mexico, a position that she never held. After a long investigation, the INE considered the parallel income network accredited and sanctioned the political party in September 2021.

The resolution was appealed by both Morena and the PAN. The former defended their innocence and the latter considered the result insufficient, since it did not directly implicate Gómez. The former mayor of Texcoco alleged that the INE had "failed to comply with due process, by establishing situations of fact and law unrelated to the complaint and not removable from the investigation", in what became the umpteenth chapter of the war between the institution and government. For its part, the agency gave view of the resolution to the Attorney General of the State of Mexico, for possible "electoral crimes"; to the Office of the Special Prosecutor for Electoral Crimes, “for conduct allegedly consecutive to crimes in electoral matters”; and the Financial Intelligence Unit (UIF).

Neither the president nor the Secretary of Education have commented on the ratification of the TEPJF, despite the fact that the two have appeared before the press this Thursday in the daily morning that López Obrador performs.

Instead, Gómez has presented a collection of books to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Ministry of Public Education.

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Source: elparis

All news articles on 2022-01-13

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