MEXICO CITY— Mexico’s president plowed forward with assaults in opposition to the opposition front-runner for the 2024 presidential elections Friday, regardless of a ruling by electoral authorities that he has been violating fairness and neutrality guidelines with such feedback.

President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has spent weeks utilizing his morning press briefing to criticize Xóchitl Gálvez, a plain-talking senator and former indigenous affairs official. López Obrador is barred from working once more after the tip of his six-year time period, and Gálvez hasn’t been nominated but by opposition events, however she has been gaining momentum.

The complaints fee of the National Electoral Institute dominated late Thursday that López Obrador’s remarks “apparently violated the principles of equity, neutrality impartiality,” and ordered the president to “avoid commenting on electoral matters.”

López Obrador claimed Friday that electoral authorities “are trying to silence me” and violate his freedom of expression. He argued that - as a result of his workplace had not been formally notified of the ruling - he may proceed criticizing Gálvez.

“We still have time, before they want to limit me,” López Obrador mentioned, earlier than repeating claims that Gálvez was “the representative of the mafia of power” and that her firm had obtained tens of tens of millions in authorities contracts.

Gálvez has responded that even López Obrador’s personal administration has employed her info know-how firm to do authorities work, displaying how good the agency is.

“My career didn’t start in politics,” Gálvez wrote in her Twitter account. “I am proud to have created jobs for hundreds of Mexican families.”

“The president is upset by tax-paying jobs and businesses, because he has never seen one,” she wrote. “He is used to (getting money) in plain envelopes.”

Gálvez is an impartial who serves within the Senate for the conservative National Action Party. She comes from a small-town, partly indigenous background, and has usually taken extra progressive stances.

After a long time within the twentieth century by which the previous ruling celebration used authorities funds to affect elections, Mexico handed strict guidelines within the late Nineties saying the federal government needed to stay impartial in elections and never use public funds to help or oppose candidates.

Article 134 of the Constitution, which says authorities media, promoting and public relations should solely be used for informative or instructional functions, not for or in opposition to any politician. The authorities pays to provide and broadcast the morning press briefings, held on the lavish National Palace the place López Obrador lives.

For a number of a long time, Mexican presidents have averted - and in recent times, been legally prohibited from - making overtly partisan marketing campaign statements. That is partly as a result of Mexico is a extremely centralized nation the place the president wields huge energy, each political and monetary.

López Obrador’s conduct could possibly be in comparison with then-outgoing U.S. President Barack Obama lashing candidate Donald Trump often and at size at White House press briefings in 2016, or George W. Bush utilizing such briefings to often assault Obama in 2008.

Parties are presently nonetheless in major season, and the official campaigns for the June 2024 presidential elections don't formally begin till September

López Obrador has already run afoul of electoral courts on exactly this concern.

Earlier this yr, a federal electoral tribunal dominated that López Obrador had violated guidelines prohibiting using authorities assets in campaigns, associated to feedback he made through the run-up to 2 state elections held in Mexico in June.

In March, López Obrador used his morning press briefing to induce Mexicans to not vote for opposition candidates within the two state races, saying “don’t vote for the conservative Alliance … not one vote for the conservatives.”

Gálvez has requested to be allowed to answer the president’s feedback on the every day press briefing, and even obtained a court docket injunction permitting her to take action, however López Obrador refused, saying she wished to “play politics” on the briefing.

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