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They approve a decree that allows promoting revocation Through the fast track route and with complaints of a “legislative strike” by the opposition, the groups of Morena, PT and Verde in the Chamber of Deputies approved a decree to establish that the dissemination of the consultation on the revocation of the mandate “is not propaganda”, so its disclosure by any public official will not be considered illegal, even in closed season.
This same Thursday the project was presented, it did not go through commissions and went directly to the plenary session with a waiver of all procedures and, following four and a half hours of debate, the decree was endorsed by 268 votes in favor by Morena, PT and PVEM and 213 once morest the PRI, PAN, PRD and MC caucuses, and turned to the Senate for analysis.
The project signed by the president of the Board of Directors, Sergio Gutiérrez Luna; the parliamentary coordinator, Ignacio Mier, and Morena’s representative before the National Electoral Institute (INE), Mario Rafael Llergo, seek to ensure that there is no room for interpretation by the INE, whose authorities recently prohibited spreading the revocation issue on social media for considering it “government propaganda”.
This approved decree “reinterprets” the concept of propaganda and establishes that public servants may disseminate the revocation, “since it is considered information of public interest that does not constitute propaganda.”
By using their legislative majority, Morena, PT and Verde waived all the paperwork and thus the president of the Board of Directors stepped down from the presidency to present the proposal on the platform, which was criticized by the opposition.
“You cannot violate the procedure. They changed the order of the day, what you have just done is not ethical and is not moral”, criticized the PRI deputy Yolanda de la Torre.
Despite the disagreements, Gutiérrez Luna made use of the voice and maintained that government propaganda “must be understood when there is the use of resources that they have budgeted to acquire propaganda”, and said that the limitation of making propaganda during the electoral bans “should not extend to the opinions, statements or comments made by public servants”.
With this, he continued, access to information of public interest and the right to freedom of expression are privileged, since currently “there is a distortion” of the electoral bodies “who have reached absurdity, because they violate human rights guarantees.”
According to the opinion, the decree establishes that government propaganda shall be understood as “the set of writings, publications, images, recordings and projections disseminated, under any form of social communication, charged to the public budget, labeled specifically for that purpose, by a public entity”.
Likewise, it is noted that: “The expressions of public servants do not constitute government propaganda, which are subject to the limits established in the applicable laws. Information of public interest does not constitute government propaganda either.”
In this regard, the PAN deputy, Santiago Torreblanca, warned that the decree establishes that if it does not come from a specific item destined for government propaganda “it will not be considered such” and then a person can use a public office, public cameras, and public media to exalt his figure, his person, attack his opponents and thereby affect the fairness of the contest.
“Beware, this interpretation will not only have effects for the revocation of the mandate, they intend that in future electoral processes this interpretation be carried out and that therefore a governor can use the state media, the area of social communication and all the resources that are expressly labeled to exalt their figure and their candidates”, he asserted.
The deputy of Movimiento Ciudadano Ivonne Ortega filed a suspensive motion, which was rejected, and recalled that changing the electoral law 90 days before a process is not legal, and this time the proposal “is presented less than 30 days following the consultation of revocation of mandate”.
PRD deputy Elizabeth Pérez asserted that the decree “is a direct violation of constitutional bodies.” ]]>
