Protests, threats and violence overshadow Mexico vote

TIXTLA DE GUERRERO, Mexico – Mexicans headed to the polls Sunday, June 7, for midterm elections as protesters burned some ballots in the troubled southern state of Guerrero amid threats by radical teachers to block the vote.

The government of President Enrique Pena Nieto deployed troops and police this weekend to patrol the streets, skies and seas of Mexico to ensure people can cast their ballots.

Despite the deployment, masked protesters and parents of 43 students who were allegedly killed by a police-backed drug gang last year snatched election material in Tixtla and burned it, preventing at least 3 polling stations from opening.

“As long as they don’t deliver our sons, there won’t be elections,” said the father of one of the 43 students, whose parents refuse to believe they are dead and have vowed to prevent the elections.

The deployment of federal forces followed daily protests spearheaded by a dissident wing of a teachers’ union that has stormed election offices, burned thousands of ballots and ransacked headquarters of political parties in Guerrero, Oaxaca and Chiapas states.

Federal forces are focusing especially on Oaxaca, where the teachers blocked access to a state oil company facility, causing fuel shortages, until authorities stepped in.

“Mexicans want to and have the right to vote in peace. The government will take the necessary action within the law to guarantee this,” said Pena Nieto’s spokesman, Eduardo Sanchez.

Other violence is also a concern in regions plagued by crime and drug gangs.

At least 10 people were killed on Saturday in Guerrero when rival factions of a self-defense militia clashed in a village, though authorities suggested the fight was linked to an internal feud and not the elections.

Pena Nieto test

The CNTE union is putting pressure on Pena Nieto to withdraw a landmark education reform aimed at improving the country’s lackluster school system. Others are also furious at the collusion between gangs and politicians.

In addition to the protest, at least four candidates were murdered in the run-up to the election, including three in Guerrero and Michoacan, two states plagued by drug violence.

“The possibility that social violence could have a role in limiting the vote, affecting the results, is unprecedented in Mexico’s modern history as a democracy,” said Javier Oliva, security expert at the National Autonomous University of Mexico.

Despite the rocky campaign season authorities have voiced confidence that the elections for 500 members of the lower chamber of Congress, around 900 mayors and nine governors, will not be thwarted.

The elections are a test for Pena Nieto, whose Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) and its allies expect to maintain a congressional majority, despite the protests and political scandals.

But history could be made in the industrial state of Nuevo Leon, where Jaime “El Bronco” Rodriguez is riding a wave of discontent against corrupt politicians and could become the first ever independent to be elected governor.

Flashpoints Oaxaca, Guerrero

The protests, however, are overshadowing the elections.

As federal forces arrived in Oaxaca on Saturday, teachers abandoned electoral offices that they had been occupying, but they left a trail of destruction.

They torched the local offices of the National Electoral Institute in Tlacolula.

In Huajuapan, teachers clashed with federal police and detained four officers, including one who was beaten, a municipal policeman said. Four teachers were arrested.

Elsewhere on Saturday, members of a “community police,” or self-defense force, were attacked by a rival faction in Xolapa, Guerrero state, leaving at least 10 dead, witnesses said.

Authorities said the rival factions have been fighting over territory.

In Xochistlahuaca, at least seven supporters of the PRI were wounded when another community police force fired at them, authorities said. – Leticia Pineda, AFP/Rappler.com