The government’s intention to destroy the INE forces us to take to the streets: Woldenberg

Roberto Garduno

Newspaper La Jornada
Monday, November 14, 2022, p. 4

Entire families, for the most part, of well-to-do origin, middle classes, popular sectors and workers (also in the company of their own) attended the march along Paseo de la Reforma and the rally in Plaza de la República with a slogan: defend to the INE.

The organizers announced that the participation reached 200 thousand people, while on the other hand the authority of Mexico City estimated the turnout at 12 thousand. Even with such disparate calculations, the spirit that women and men, youth and children displayed in the walk was notorious. Of them the little training in the fights of the protest was evidenced. They came to what they were going to shout: The INE is not touched, the INE is not touched…!

The intersection between Paseo de la Reforma and Sevilla Avenue, at the foot of the column of the Angel of Independence, was insufficient as a meeting point. The arrival of people everywhere caused thousands to decide to start the walk an hour before the scheduled time, to leave in the direction of the Monument to the Revolution. The crowd almost filled the Plaza de la República when the vanguard of the march barely began to walk, where José Woldenberg, the first president of the General Council of the IFE, was in charge of giving a speech as the only speaker.

On the lanes of Paseo de la Reforma, from the central offices of the IMSS, to what was the Colón roundabout and is now known as the women’s roundabout, a human river was formed. They walked up to old women, many of them accompanied by their husbands, their children and grandchildren, and they also allowed themselves to be seen by figures from political and public life.

The president of the PRI, Alejandro Moreno Cárdenas, led a contingent of 20,000 members of his party. With a long blanket that he let see The INE is untouchablethe native of Campeche received support from his followers: “Hard! wing, with everything!” Elba Esther Gordillo and Senator Beatriz Paredes also arrived, in a wheelchair, as she is recovering from an intervention.

Protected by a compact contingent of PAN members, Vicente Fox Quesada arrived with hat, along with Marko Cortés and, next to them, Santiago Creel Miranda. Porfirio Muñoz Ledo, Francisco Labastida Ochoa, José Narro Robles, Ulises Ruiz, Claudia Ruiz Massieu, Roberto Madrazo and Javier Lozano, among others, were also seen.

copious participation

However, what was relevant was the large participation of the families and their expression –during the journey– for taking care of the INE. The attendance was such that in the surrounding streets and at the forks to Reforma, people continued to join the march. In two blocks of Morelos Avenue, a line of trucks and peseros was observed.

By 11 a.m., the crowd had already filled the plaza of the Monument to the Revolution and its adjacent streets: Avenida de la República –where a giant screen was installed to broadcast the rally–, José María Lafragua, Ignacio Ramírez, Ponciano Arriaga and Gomez Farias. And so, 10 minutes before 12, Woldenberg, alone, went up to the bandstand.

He issued a message in defense of democracy: We are here exercising our rights; the right to demonstrate, to give opinions, to meet peacefully to express our desires and aspirations. We leave behind the country of a single party, of oppressive presidentialism, to make way for clean and credible elections.

After pointing out that the ownership of the Executive Power has changed, that the Legislative Power has registered the preferences of millions of Mexicans and the minorities of yesterday are the majorities of today, he pointed out: “The major problem, the one that has brought us here, the one that it forces us to take to the streets, it is because the government wants to destroy it – he was interrupted by a chorus: ‘the INE is not touched, the INE is not touched’ – it is necessary to insist on that because it means not only an attack on the institutions but to the impossibility of processing our political life in a democratic format”.

And he considered in his criticism that Mexico cannot return to an electoral institution aligned with the government; our country does not deserve to return to the past, because what has been built allows authentic elections and is the cornerstone of any democratic system.

Hence, he argued that Since the last electoral reform in 2014, 55 thousand 336 positions of popular election have been disputed in the states and in Mexico City, among them 55 governorships, 93 legislatures and 5 thousand 932 city councils. Only last year the electoral institutes registered 255 thousand 424 local candidates. With such numbers I ask you: is it desirable and possible to concentrate on organizing and managing that political universe in a single institution?

noooowas the answer.

And put on the table Mexico does not deserve a constitutional reform in electoral matters promoted by a single will, no matter how relevant it may be. There are important lessons in the past, the reforms that were the fruit of collective wills were forged with the tried and tested methods of dialogue and agreement. Only from the blindest authoritarianism can aspire to organize the wealth of expressions. On the contrary, we value that diversity. Our future cannot be the result of seduction by a past that was banished in good time.

At 12:30 the demonstration ended with a substantial interpretation of the National Anthem. Woldenberg quickly withdrew. Claudio X. González, one of the promoters of the call, approached one side of the pavilion, greeted, smiled, took selfies with as many people as requested and in response to his complacent attitude they came to lavish him: You are a bastion of democracy, do not bend.