Some legislators and municipal presidents take to their states shealth services, mobile dormitories, water tanks, caps and hand out brochures with your name and photograph. Although politicians do not call for voting for them, they do distribute products and promote their image.
Although these actions are not new, there are no mechanisms to prohibit them, given that current legislation does not consider them as anticipated pre-campaign or campaign acts.
The counselor electoral Dania Ravel explains that the definitions established in the General Law of Electoral Institutions and Procedures on advance pre-campaign and campaign acts represent an obstacle to sanctioning acts of mere promotion, where an intention to compete in an electoral process is not expressly mentioned.
It has been very complex for the anticipated acts to really be sanctioned. They are giving us two definitions, which, from my point of view, are limitations.”
Dania Ravel, advisor to the INE.
The counselor of the National Electoral Institute (INE) explains that there are two limitations:
1. The content of the expressions so that they can be considered as anticipated acts.
2. The definition of early pre-campaign acts, since a temporal restriction is placed that applies during the period from the beginning of the electoral process, until before the legal deadline for the start of the pre-campaigns.
Gain presence
While defining whether there is a sanction or not, there are positive and negative implications for those who promote their image.
According to Edgar Scott Aguilar, an expert in Political Communication, getting ahead of campaign or pre-campaign times allows politicians to position themselves, gain presence in the media and territory, as well as define a narrative.
However, he considers that this also has other types of implications, such as tiring the public and generating rejection of the stimuli that citizens receive about politics and government.
“They give the impression of impatience, of someone who does not respect the rules; getting ahead of the democratic fire. In Political Communication, everything communicates: in the ethics or lack of ethics of these candidates they also send a message and communicate to the population who our new ruler is or will be and how he tries to evade the laws,” he explains.
Promotion…
Due to these limitations to sanction, the legislators and municipal presidents of Morena take advantage of the time to spread their image and name through “gifts” they give to citizens.
One of the cases that stands out is that of the senator Andrea Chavezwho has already expressed her intentions to be Morena’s candidate for the Chihuahua government.
At the beginning of this year, the legislator brought medical services to her state in buses that had her name and image. Faced with the party’s demands, he stopped promoting his image like this and changed his product.
Now, the senator delivers coffees in glasses that bear her name and image to citizens who start working early in the day.
“The sun had not yet risen when we began to distribute bread and coffee to those who begin their day at 4 in the morning in the maquila. At that time when the cold sets in and sleep weighs down, hope accompanies every step of those who head to work to support their family,” he wrote on his social networks.
In a similar case this Cecilia Guadiana who, like Andrea Chávez, began to bring health services to Coahuila. She did it using buses labeled with her image and name, but according to the senator’s statements, these mobile units were financed by the business sector and her salary.
Following the call from Morena and President Claudia Sheinbaum to avoid promoting herself, the legislator only removed the image of the health buses, but left her name.
In addition, inside the vehicle they hang brochures with her image and give away bottles of disinfectant gel, which have the senator’s face. Added to this is that, at informational assemblies, he gives away cherry caps with his name.
She is the daughter of the deceased Armando Guadianawho was a senator and candidate on two occasions for the government of Coahuila for Morenas. She is also the wife of Américo Villareal Santiago, son of the governor of Tamaulipas. Now she is one of the favorites to be a candidate for governor in Coahuila.
The buses to provide services were used by other Morenistas, such as Alberto Hurtado, who is a local representative for Morena in the Congress of Coahuila. He brings mobile community dormitories to be used by people who accompany their relatives who are admitted to the General Hospital of Saltillo.
These buses are labeled with the name of the Morenista and inside are decorated with photos of the deputy accompanied by President Claudia Sheinbaum, Armando Guadiana and Cecilia Guadiana.
In addition, he also sells water tanks at low cost to “generate savings for Saltillo families,” but these have his name and that of Senator Cecilia Guadiana. In a video that he published on his social networks, Alberto Hurtado points out that they sell them for 2,000 pesos.
