Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said the National Electoral Institute (INE) must undergo a comprehensive internal cleansing process after evidence emerged confirming a network of corruption and monopoly in public contracts that operated within the electoral body for over two decades.
The president questioned the opposition mobilizations promoted during her predecessor Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s term under the slogan “The INE is untouchable,” stating that this narrative aimed to protect the interests of a group entrenched within the electoral body.
“Perhaps they said ‘The INE is untouchable’ to protect all this electoral mafia that they had built,” Sheinbaum said during her regular morning press conference on Friday, November 6. “The INE does need to be sanitized; it must safeguard the popular will and guarantee clean elections, as well as an internal operation with transparency and republican austerity.”
The president’s statements came after the formal resignation of the former INE president, Guadalupe Taddei, amid allegations of irregularities in multimillion-dollar contracts and conflicts of interest.
Federal investigations revealed a continuous contracting scheme with the same suppliers since 1989.
Specialists and audits determined that several competing companies were simulating price competition in public tenders, previously agreeing on the lowest bid to ensure the decision favored a single-beneficiary structure linked to the Hernández and Casillas brothers, a network of contractors that has been operating in agencies such as the National Population Registry since the late 1980s, consolidating its presence in the electoral body through successive administrations.
Sheinbaum questioned why electoral contracts systematically ended up in the same hands since 1989 and pointed out that the structure was strengthened during the tenure of the former INE president, Lorenzo Córdova.
Measures for the 2027 midterm elections
To curb irregularities and ensure transparency ahead of the midterm elections on June 6, 2027, in which more than 21,000 public positions will be up for election, the federal government announced that ballots and electoral materials will be produced directly by state-run workshops and graphic shops.
Likewise, strict guidelines will be established for hiring carried out by the Local Public Electoral Bodies.
Analysts and electoral specialists, such as Carolina del Ángel Cruz, agreed that prompt intervention and transparency in the investigations are urgent to restore the institution’s social legitimacy, warning that the lack of credibility in the electoral arbiter jeopardizes citizen recognition of democratic processes.
Does Mexico Fear Bot Attacks During Campaigns? Here’s What Sheinbaum Says
The institutional crisis arose after the publication of press reports about an alleged network of at least seven INE suppliers that supposedly simulated competition in contract awards and issued receipts for non-existent services. In response to these reports, the Superior Audit Office of the Federation launched an investigation.
The INE has an annual budget of over 14 billion pesos, not including the resources allocated to political parties, and has a staff of over 19,000 workers.
(Telesur)
Translation: Orinoco Tribune
OT/SC/SF
From Orinoco Tribune via This RSS Feed.