The march, political striptease of conservatism: AMLO

Alonso Urrutia and Nestor Jimenez

Newspaper La Jornada
Tuesday, November 15, 2022, p. 4

He assumed it as an obligatory subject and approached it bluntly, because if I qualify it is not understoodclarified President Andrés Manuel López Obrador. Under the pretext of defending the National Electoral Institute (INE), the march against the reform “was very important… as a kind of striptease political, public, of conservatism”.

No way that Madrazo, Elba Esther and Fox are democrats!, right? -and he let out a laugh-; Woldenberg!, the one who validated electoral fraud.

They were criticisms that he accompanied with various materials during yesterday’s conference: Why don’t you put up the Democrat billboard? The photos of those who went to the march, just to make it clear that it is not the INE.

The list sent by the Secretary of Security and Citizen Protection then appeared on the screen of the Treasury Room: Claudio X. González, Margarita Zavala, José Narro, Miguel Ángel Osorio Chong, Alejandro Moreno…

A gallery of politicians and business leaders about whose trajectories the President ironized: Mrs. Calderón, Democrat. Out of respect for her I will not expand my comment. Mrs. Claudia Ruiz Massieu, niece of Carlos Salinas. Nor am I going to expand my comment, it is not necessary. Santiago Creel, imagine! The Coparmex, a sector of the PAN and that I was charged with the king… Claudio X. González, of those who participated in the 2006 fraud.

I will accuse to the clergy

A review that included even the Mexican Catholic hierarchy, whose performance, in the presidential vision, is contrary to the social leadership of Francisco, who is a progressive Pope, defender of the poor, not of the powerful, not of the oligarchs, not of the corrupt, not of the undemocratic. Defender of just causes. That is why I am going to accuse those who are defending these potentates and fifis and aspiring fifis.

For López Obrador, the motivations for the march were clear, since the alleged attack on the INE is unfounded. What is sought is the opposite, to strengthen democracy, because there are still risks of electoral fraud. The INE thing was an excuse. Basically, those who demonstrated did so against the transformation, in favor of the privileges they had before the government that I represent, in favor of corruption, racism, classism, discrimination. That’s the bottom!

He anticipated that, despite the march, there is no plan B to his proposal for electoral reform and in the face of insistent questions, he asked to wait for the vote.

In the midst of his criticism, he evoked Francisco I. Madero and his historical mistake of distancing himself from the town when it was under siege. He equated that conjuncture with the one he faces his government: If now I, instead of turning to see the people, turned to see the owners of the newspapers, the organic intellectuals, the owners of the banks, I would be turned into a wimp, a puppet, a vase, an employee of them. And if I rebelled against them without having the support of the people, they would have overthrown me..

Although he addressed the largest opposition mobilization of his government, he always remained smiling, ironic, sarcastic, and at times he laughed out loud.

Not half of the Zócalo

As photographs were presented, he emphasized his position: “Javier Lozano: uuuh… another Democrat. He is the one with ‘cups or neck’. Remember? The one who destroyed the Luz y Fuerza company and fired 40,000 electricians. José Narro, from UNAM to PRI rattlemaker; Carlos Medina, the one with the concerted assignment that without having participated in an election they gave him a governorship”… Fox, a confessed electoral delinquent.

He did not grant merit to any of the protesters, so he concluded: The success of the mobilization is that the majority of the people did not participate, they could not. He estimated attendees at 60 thousand, which is why, he said, they did not want to go to the Zócalo. They would not have filled even half.

Worst of all, he stressed, is the hypocrisy of those who, he assured, today defend democracy when they endorsed electoral fraud. He especially charged against the main speaker: Woldenberg is the master of all those who later remained at the INE. And it is a conservative thought, nothing more than very hypocritical.

He asked that they put on the screen a manifesto of those who in 2006 ruled out that fraud had occurred in the presidential elections. He made a new review of names until he reached José Woldenberg and Lorenzo Córdova, the president counselor of the National Electoral Institute.

pure fine peoplethe president concluded.