MEXICO CITY — Tens of thousands of mostly opposition supporters protested Sunday against Mexico’s president in the capital’s vast colonial-era main plaza ahead of the June presidential election.
The protesters in Mexico City carried signs saying “We are Mexicans,” referring to what they claim are attempts by President Andrés Manuel López Obrador to divide the country.
Mexico is extremely polarized ahead of the June 2 presidential election. López Obrador regularly rails against reporters, the middle class, businessmen and people he calls “individualists” and social climbers.
The protest was originally called to defend independent electoral agencies the president wants to reduce or de-fund. But many protesters carried banners supporting opposition candidate Xóchitl Gálvez. Former Mexico City Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum of the president’s Morena party appears to be leading the race going into the June 2 vote.
Mexican presidents are limited to a single six-year term.
Mexico City resident Joel Guerra, 59, carried a sign that read “Reclaim Mexico.”
“The president says that only his supporters are ‘the good people’ of Mexico, and the rest of us don’t have rights,” Guerra said. “We are people, too.”
Guerra was particularly concerned by a new law that López Obrador has passed that seizes unclaimed personal pension accounts to hand out to other retirees.
“Unfortunately, the people governing us right now have completely divided the country,” said businesswoman Alana Leal. “There are two groups of Mexicans, and that’s not fair. It’s not fair to create so much hate, because at the end of the day, we’re all in the same boat, and we are all working for the country’s progress.”
López Obrador frequently attacks anyone who disagrees with him as “racist, classist, conservative.” He also favors state-owned companies and government hand-out programs and derides the accumulation of personal wealth.
The march came before the candidates are to hold their third and final debate late Sunday. Sheinbaum has pledged to try to reconcile Mexicans if she wins, but Leal doubted she would.
“I think it will be very difficult to achieve a reconciliation between the two groups,” she said, adding “that is very regrettable.”