López Obrador ignores the order of the electoral body and the opposition challenges him

The Mexican president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, continued on Friday with the attacks against the favorite candidate of the opposition despite the fact that the electoral authorities ordered him to refrain from intervening in the internal electoral process of the parties. The campaign is thus heating up less than two months before the competitors for the 2024 presidential elections are defined.

Disregarding the order issued the day before by a unit of the National Electoral Institute (INE), López Obrador once again accused Senator Xóchitl Gálvez of benefiting from million-dollar contracts through her technology companies.

During his morning conference, the president affirmed that the Gálvez companies received contracts for nine years for works for about 1,500 million pesos (about 88 million dollars).

“If there are injustices, if crimes are committed, if there is white-collar crime, organized crime, it must be denounced,” López Obrador said after assuring that the INE’s decision seeks to silence him and warned that if his adversaries attack him, he will have the right to reply. “There’s no way I’m not going to answer,” he stressed.

Given the president’s comments, the opposition reacted immediately and, in an interview with a local media, challenged him to show the contracts of his companies. She announced that she will sue him for violating a series of laws.

“Follow him, I’m not afraid of him, there’s nothing to hide,” said the 60-year-old politician. If the ruler shows the contracts, she will resign from the candidacy, according to her. “And if not, let him resign from the presidency as a liar,” she concluded.

The senator accused López Obrador on his Twitter account of using “the entire State apparatus to maliciously investigate me for my aspiration.”

A unit of the INE approved on Thursday precautionary measures in favor of Gálvez, an independent politician who came to the Senate in 2018 at the hands of the opposition National Action Party (PAN), who asked the agency to rule on the president’s statements.

López Obrador referred to him in his morning program known as “la mañanera” on July 3, 4, 5 and 7. Gálvez denounced the ruler for improper use of public resources and violating the principles of equity in the contest.

The INE ordered the president to “refrain, under any modality or format, from holding demonstrations, issuing comments, opinions or statements on electoral issues, especially with respect to candidates for any position or political forces” and to comply with constitutional principles of “impartiality and neutrality”.

Likewise, the agency established that within a period of no more than 24 hours from the notification, the audiovisual publications and stenographic versions of his conference in which he mentions Gálvez must be eliminated or modified.

The president’s criticism of the senator, one of 12 candidates who will seek the presidential candidacy of the opposition Broad Front for Mexico -which will be defined in two months through surveys and a citizen consultation-, intensified as of July 3, when he stated that Gálvez would be the one selected by the “oligarchy” and the leadership of the traditional parties to participate in the 2024 presidential elections.

López Obrador ruled out that his comments against the senator violate the regulations and argued that the electoral process does not begin until September, but affirmed that since “justice and democracy are involved, we are going to have to continue talking.”

The constitution states that government media, advertising, and public relations should only be used for informational or educational purposes, not for or against any politician.

It is not the first time that the electoral authorities sanction López Obrador. Last week, a federal electoral court determined that the president violated rules that prohibit the use of government resources in campaigns, in relation to comments he made during the run-up to last June’s elections in the states of Coahuila and Mexico. .

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