AMLO defies INE order with new mañanera segment

July 19, 2023

Mexico's President Lopez Obrador — Despite an order from the INE last week, President López Obrador has established a new line of attack against his political adversaries that follows the letter, if not the spirit, of the electoral body's ruling. (lopezobrador.org.mx)

After the National Electoral Institute (INE) last week ordered him to abstain from speaking about electoral issues, President López Obrador has turned to others to help him get his desired messages across anyway.

On Wednesday, López Obrador launched a new segment for his morning press conferences, or mañaneras, in which he will present the remarks of selected people on issues related to the 2024 elections.

Mexico Senator Xóchitl Gálvez — The president has targeted opposition presidential hopeful Senator Xóchitl Gálvez with a number of questionable public remarks about her character and personal history, which finally prompted the National Electoral Institute to ban him from speaking about electoral issues altogether. (Santiago Alba Ibarra/Wikimedia Commons)

“As I can no longer say much … I’m going to have a new section,” he said, adding that his proposal was to call it “No lo digo yo” (It’s Not Me Saying It).

The views of others will be presented “so that the people have information,” López Obrador said.

He inaugurated the new segment with an interview broadcast earlier this week in which former president Vicente Fox made a potentially damaging remark about Senator Xóchitl Gálvez, an aspirant to the Broad Front for Mexico’s candidacy for the 2024 presidential election.

Disparaging comments made by López Obrador about Gálvez — such as that she is the “candidate of the mafia of power” and a “puppet of the oligarchy” — prompted the senator to file a complaint with INE, which led the elections oversight agency to impose an electoral issues gag order on the president.

Gálvez is known for camera-friendly antics. She’s been known to bring her trademark bicycle into the Senate chambers, and in December, when controversial electoral reform was voted on in the Senate, Gálvez called it a “Jurassic Plan” and attended the session in a dinosaur costume. (Cuartoscuro)

In the video presented by AMLO on Wednesday, Fox said that “lazy people” don’t have a place in government or “the country,” and asserted that citizens should find a job rather than depend on welfare payments.

“As Xóchitl says, get to work cabrones [assholes],” Fox said.

López Obrador called for the remark to be played again, saying that it went to “the heart of the matter.”

“INE, … I have been notified, I’m not going to say [anything],” added the president, who has claimed that Gálvez is opposed to government welfare and social programs.

The INE has been a foil to President López Obrador’s attempts to implement major electoral reforms in Mexico, as well as his attacks on opposition politicians. (Graciela López/Cuartoscuro)

However, the National Action Party (PAN) senator — currently considered the leading aspirant to the nomination of the PAN-PRI-PRD-backed Broad Front for Mexico — affirmed her commitment to welfare and social programs in a video posted to Twitter late last month in which she declared she would become the next president of Mexico.

“I’m convinced that the social programs are absolutely essential,” she said.

López Obrador on Wednesday morning didn’t say how frequently he intended to present his new mañanera segment or reveal who else would appear in it. He has repeatedly railed against the INE’s ruling, characterizing it as an attack on his right to free speech.

With reports from Reforma, Expansión and El País