If the federal government’s refusal to grant the INE a budget increase of more than 1,700 million pesos to carry out the consultation on Revocation of the Mandate is confirmed, the electoral advisor Ciro Murayama affirms that the plan “b” of the institute is to organize the exercise with a third of the 160,000 voting booths that have been estimated to be placed, a number similar to those placed for last year’s referendum.
Interviewed by El Economista, Murayama indicates, on the other hand, that it is known that the criminal process for the complaint against him and five other councilors is still underway despite what was said by the Chamber of Deputies, which announced that it would seek stop it.
The counselor also talks about the case of Pío López Obrador, the brother of President Andrés Manuel, accused of violating electoral laws; the use of INE trusts and what it considers to be a campaign by the federal government against the electoral body.
—Can the INE use the trust resources as proposed by the federal government for the revocation or not?
The first trust, which refers to the infrastructure and maintenance of citizen attention modules, precisely intends to financially support the equipment with which the credentialing operates.
And the other, labor liability, precisely allows us to fulfill our obligations as an employer when people retire (…) What the government is proposing to us is that we violate the rights of INE workers, which would be all illegal.
It would be a contradiction (to use them). We have the obligation to credential the population, we know that the credential to vote, in fact, is the citizen identity card in our country; Well, it would be damaging that service and that right of citizens, we would be damaging the citizenry, damaging a service to fulfill a few more boxes in the revocation. It would be a contradiction if, by expanding one right, another would be damaged.
—Does the federal Executive seek to bend the INE to its determinations with the revocation consultation?
The revocation is being used as a weapon to, in effect, bend the INE on issues where the INE has been successful in court. Just on December 29, the Electoral Court said that it could not affect labor rights or fail to comply with its constitutional obligations, such as credentialing, to make the revocation.
And the Supreme Court of Justice, for four years, has been protecting the earnings and employment benefits of INE workers and, now, the government even wants us to disregard the jurisdictional pronouncements and that we skip the court and the Court to comply with the whim of the government that, at times, has ceased to be austerity to be austericide.
It is very worrying that this government, which came to power in impeccable elections organized by the INE, is determined to affect this autonomous institution.
—Is the prestige of the INE at stake with the revocation?
The INE is going to organize the Revocation of the Mandate (…) there are going to be polling stations in all the electoral sections. From that point we are calm, what worries us is that it will not be possible to install as many boxes as the law says, that is, 161,000. But, in effect, they wanted to set a trap for the INE (…) what is the trap: to place it in a situation where it is accused of being inefficient due to a budget decision taken from power. It was this that led us to go to the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation.
Plan “b” (derived from the denial of more resources) would be to adjust the number of polling places without ceasing to be present in all of the more than 60,000 sections. If (the Secretary of) Treasury refuses, it will be the federal government that is putting dikes to have the 160,000 boxes; we would operate with around a third of those polling stations, as happened with the popular referendum last August, and with that the INE would cover the file but, in effect, we are preparing to readjust our plans if we again find the government closed, which it is what they are anticipating that they are going to do.
We are calm because we know that citizens endorse the work of the INE, but what concerns us is the more legal front and, therefore, we are very pleased with the pronouncements of the Court and the Electoral Tribunal that give us coverage so that, if there are not enough resources, we may not install all the booths because that was the trap they were setting for us: denying us the resources, that we were going to install fewer booths and then accuse ourselves of violating the law.
– How is the issue of criminal complaints against you and other directors?
The complaint presented by the president of the Chamber (of Deputies, Sergio Gutiérrez) and that it is the time that he has not made public, although he said it, announced, that he was going to take measures to stop these actions, has not made public any writing in The one who has asked the Prosecutor’s Office (General of the Republic) not to go ahead and the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office has not closed the files, as far as we know this year has still been making requests to INE officials to report on the agreements by which we allegedly violated the law.
Despite the fact that the President of the Republic did not agree with criminal proceedings, the sword of Damocles remains sharp because the files are open against six directors and the Executive Secretary of the INE. What we see is a very aggressive campaign, even using instruments of authoritarianism, such as threatening jail or intimidating those who do not conform to the designs of power and, in this circumstance, we are in a very authoritarian campaign against the INE and its members.
-On another topic. The Electoral Court urged the prosecution to deliver the file of Pío López Obrador to the INE, have they already had access to the folder?
No not yet. There is already that court ruling that forces the Special Prosecutor for Electoral Crimes not to give us the ministerial secret to be able to investigate that case, of Pío López Obrador, but also others such as that of Odebrecht that we have not been able to deepen precisely because of the refusal of the prosecutor’s office to open the file to the INE and find out if there was any irregular financing of the campaigns (when Enrique Peña Nieto was elected president). It is a matter that remains to be seen.
hector.molina@eleconomista.mx
