Photo courtesy of UN Woman via Flickr
Protestors gathered in Mexico in opposition to a new bill that would place restrictions on the INE.
By Kiera McLaughlin ’26
Staff Writer
On Feb. 26, 2023, over 100,000 demonstrators in Mexico participated in a protest against a new law that weakens the Instituto Nacional Electoral, the nation’s election agency, The New York Times reported. According to Reuters, protesters yelled “Viva Mexico!” and “Lopez out!” while wearing bright pink, the color that represents the INE, and waving Mexican flags during the march into the Zócalo square.
The New York Times reported that this protest went beyond calling out President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who proposed the law, for actively undermining Mexican democracy, and was used to make public opinion known to Mexico’s Supreme Court, which will be ruling on the new law in the coming months.
According to AP News, the law will reduce salaries and funding for local elections, providing less training for the people who run polling stations and further trimming the sanctions on candidates that do not report campaign finances. The same article reported that Lorenzo Córdova Vianello, director of the INE, said that these new reforms “seek to cut thousands of people who work every day to guarantee trustworthy elections, something that will of course pose a risk for future elections.”
According to Reuters, some political analysts say that the role of the INE has been essential in securing a stable multiparty democracy, especially because of the prominence of a one-party rule in Mexico before the 2000s.
AP News reported that the U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs Brian A. Nichols tweeted on the day of the protests that “the United States supports independent, well-resourced electoral institutions that strengthen democratic processes and the rule of law.” In response, Samantha Power, current Administrator of the United States Agency for International Development, tweeted that “the Mexican Electoral Institute … is a model for electoral transparency and efficiency across Latin America. Non-partisan, well-resourced electoral institutions are key to ensuring every voice is heard, and every vote is counted.”
The location of the protest, the Zócalo square, invokes a powerful history, according to El País, as it is a famous public square in Mexico that allows thousands of people to demonstrate in the capital and is a site that represents landmark events throughout modern Mexican history. On the day of the demonstration, José Ramón, a retired minister, spoke in front of protesters with the Supreme Court courthouse behind him. Addressing the crowd, Ramón said, “those of us who are here have not only wanted to fill the Zócalo. We come to occupy, respectfully and temporarily, the Plaza de la Constitución,” El País reported.
According to AP News, President López Obrador’s reaction to this demonstration has been to criticize concerns about the weakening democracy and “[to dash] hopes that he would try to ease rising political tensions.” The same article reported that López Obrador has used his platform to discredit claims that the new law is a threat to democracy, and has even claimed that instead of the actual slogan of the protest, “Don’t touch the INE,” the demonstrators said “Don’t touch corruption,” “Don’t touch privileges,” and “Don’t touch the Narco Government.”
The New York Times reported that some analysts have said that the crowd of demonstrators on February 26 was large enough to prove that Mexicans are ready to support the institutions they believe in and express their frustration with the president.