It didn’t take long for the Federal Electoral Tribunal to shoot down the imposition by a group from the National Electoral Institute (INE) that decided that the candidates for governor in the states of Zacatecas and Durango, David Monreal and Guillermo Favela, be stripped of their right to run, on the grounds that they delivered their expenses reports three days late.
The INE officials headed by National University economics professor on leave Ciro Murayama were embarrassed by the Electoral Tribunal which decided that in the end the fault did not deserve the stiff sanction imposed by Murayama’s accounting comptrollers.
After learning of the deposition of his decision, Murayama quipped “it’s easier to comply” but did not comment on the crux of the issue, that the administrative misdemeanor did not merit the political death penalty.
Murayama, however, says he based his decision on regulations approved by all parties, which clearly, are not applied equally to all parties.
Mexicans would be more than willing to believe and trust INE officials but it is actions like the one Murayama imposed on these candidates from a “minor” party that raises doubts on their honesty and feels that there is bias on their actions.
The above mentioned candidates happen to belong to the National Regeneration Movement (Morena) which read Murayama’s move as ill-intentioned in order to favor other political parties. In fact, the immediate reaction Morena leader (and owner, some say) Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) was that if Murayama got away with the political execution the entire party would not participate in the upcoming June 5 elections and instead they would wreak havoc to discredit the democratic process.
Another hint that Murayama is after Morena was something that has nothing to do with the regulation, but an interpretation he personally made on the moniker “Morena.”
Murayama says that this name is “clearly political” (of course it is) but that it violates regulations because it is allusive to the Virgin of Guadalupe, Mexico’s Catholic and formerly Aztec spiritual guide and icon.
How did Murayama arrive at such conclusion? Well, history has it that the first banner founding father Miguel Hidalgo used back in 1810 was the one he found at the Shrine of Atotonilco, 10 miles north of San Miguel de Allende.
But also, claimed Murayama, that all the chants to praise the Virgin of Guadalupe have the word “Morena” in them. Indeed they do, and let me quote one usually sung on Dec. 12, day commemorating the 1532 appearance of the virgin to an Indian named Juan Diego: “Because the Virgin Morena, is queen of the Nahual,” or queen of the holy-spirit.
Juan Diego proved the apparition with her image under many roses where her image, magically imprinted, appeared. That’s the same painting nowadays hanging at the Shrine of Guadalupe in northern Mexico City.
So, professor Murayama now wants to cancel the name “Morena” on the grounds that this is a religious calling and is also racially “discriminatory” as “Morena” also means woman with a dark skin.
These onslaughts by Murayama against Morena and outright forcing the party to change its name were made last Monday night during a gathering “INE Prerogatives Committee” where Murayama’s proposition was cast out on grounds that Murayama did not have any “grounds” to make this claim.
“He insisted several times,” a source at INE claimed.
Morena, as a newly integrated party, is still under registration procedures and it is expected that Murayama will bring the subject up again during the upcoming INE General Council meeting where the National Regeneration Movement will most likely get its final registration as a political party.
It is a fact that Morena still needs to prove things like its procedures for selecting candidates and representatives to hold a national congress – which clearly AMLO appoints – but Morena has until the Sept. 30 deadline to comply with these INE demands.
In the meantime, after the snafus provoked by Murayama, to the upcoming Morena party Murayama is an appointee of other political parties that want to destroy “the only genuine left wing party in Mexico” as well as the official executioner to kill Morena.
Maybe Murayama is not, but maybe he is.
