Thousands of Mexicans took to the streets over the weekend to protest against election fraud tactics like media manipulation by Televisa and TV Azteca across Mexican cities on the same day of the second Presidential debate. Sinembargo.mx reports that protests against media manipulation and the establishment’s chosen candidate Enrique Peña Nieto took place in the Distrito Federal, Guadalajara, Monterrey, Saltillo, Cuernavaca, Culiacán, Puebla, Xalapa, Querétaro, Cancún, Tapachula, and other cities:
The second Presidential debate, which had originally been scheduled to not be televised nationally at all had it not been by protesters demanding that it be broadcasted widely, was nevertheless hosted as if it existed in a vaccum. While Mexican Presidential debates are highly structured due to the Federal Electoral Institute (IFE) being the one that hosts them, it was interesting to see that there was no mention of the recent explosive news that The Guardian broke regarding media manipulation by Televisa and TV Azteca in the Presidential campaign. As I wrote over at VotoLatino.org, the #YoSoy132 Mexican youth movement has sprung up as a direct challenge to the old ways of the Mexican oligarchs manipulation of elections:
The powerful Mexican elites are set on crowning their favored candidate as the next President: Enrique Peña Nieto of the PRI party. The Yo Soy 132 movement has risen to challenge Peña Nieto and what he represents. To be clear, similar to the Occupy Wall Street movement, the Yo Soy 132 movement is not a movement that endorses any particular one candidate that is currently running for President. It is primarily a movement that is challenging the system currently dominated by corporate greed that undermines democracy in Mexico. Specifically, it is pushing back against that country’s oligarchs’ manipulation of media to favor Peña Nieto, thereby setting the ground to, potentially once again, ram down people’s throats a political candidate chosen by corporate interests.
Read more on the #YoSoy132 movement on VotoLatino’s website by clicking here.
If you missed the second Mexican Presidential debate, you can find it on YouTube (here’s one link).