Mexicans protest president’s electoral reform plan By Reuters

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – Hundreds took to the streets in Mexico on Sunday to protest President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador’s plan to overtake the nation’s electoral fee INE in what they concern would focus energy within the palms of the federal government.

Lopez Obrador, who put the plan ahead in April, has lengthy criticized the nation’s electoral authorities, together with accusing them of serving to to engineer his defeats when he ran for the presidency in 2006 and 2012.

He has stated that the reform would let residents elect electoral authorities and cut back the affect of financial pursuits in politics. It might additionally reduce financing for political events and restrict promoting time.

Final week, Congress began discussing the plan.

It sparked widespread considerations that the modifications might presage an influence seize as a result of it offers the president extra management over the electoral techniques.

Up to now, Lopez Obrador pursued contentious insurance policies by pitching referendums – together with on the cancellation of a part-built airport – to assert common mandates for his goals.

Protesters in Mexico Metropolis, many holding placards and banners with slogans “defending the INE”, began on the Angel of Independence monument. It gathered momentum as protesters moved on Reforma Avenue in direction of the Monument to the Revolution.

“The democracy in Mexico is in peril,” stated Ana Lilia Moreno, an economist who attended the march within the capital along with her eight-year-old daughter.

“I hope that many younger individuals – and even those that are usually not inquisitive about politics – will attend, that they’ll worth our establishments, and can defend what our mother and father and grandparents constructed to mature politically.”

Protesters shared photographs from different cities on social media.

Lopez Obrador posted a video message on his Twitter as he celebrated his 69th birthday – however didn’t deal with the protests.

His ruling Morena occasion and its allies would wish a two-thirds majority in Congress to make modifications to the structure. At the moment, the occasion is in need of that majority.