MEXICO-ELECTIONS/CLASHES Mexican teachers in Oaxaca raid electoral offices calling for a boycott of midterm elections

Record ID: 149726

  • Title: MEXICO-ELECTIONS/CLASHES Mexican teachers in Oaxaca raid electoral offices calling for a boycott of midterm elections
  • Date: 1st June 2015
  • Summary: JUCHITAN. OAXACA (JUNE 1, 2015) (REUTERS) BLACK SMOKE COMING OUT OF ELECTORAL OFFICE / FIRE SEEN BLAZING INSIDE DESK TURNED UPSIDE DOWN AND PAPERS SCATTERED AROUND OFFICE INTERIOR FOLLOWING RAID MAN THROWING BUCKET OF WATER TO PUT OUT FIRE IN OFFICES MORE OF INTERIOR OF RAIDED OFFICES MEN OUTSIDE TRYING TO PUT OUT FIRE / SMOKE WITH EXTINGUISHERS OAXACA CITY, OAXACA (JUNE 1
  • Embargoed: 16th June 2015 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Mexico
  • Country: Mexico
  • Topics: General
  • Reuters ID: LVA8ZGRKFF6DS1ES5EK31Q8Z9NW2
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: Protesting teachers set fire to an office of the electoral institute and burnt electoral material in the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca on Monday (June 1) as the country prepares to hold mid-term elections on June 7 amid tension and social unrest over a host of challenges in Mexico.
    Internal and gang violence has claimed more than 100,000 lives in Mexico since 2007, and Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto's efforts to focus on economic development have been sidelined by the violence.
    Regional elections across several states and for the whole lower congress in Mexico are shaping up to be tense in Oaxaca state, where teachers have joined movements against education reforms proposed by Pena Nieto.
    Teachers from Oaxaca's Section 22 of the National Union of Education Workers (SNTE) raided offices belonging to Mexico's national electoral institute (INE) in the town of Juchitan and set fire to electoral material. Workers of the institute and firemen helped to put out the fire.
    In Oaxaca City, the teachers also set fire to electoral documents and empty boxes outside INE offices. The messages: "Electoral boycott" and "general strike" were painted on the walls outside the offices.
    Electoral authorities have not yet confirmed whether the destroyed electoral material will be replaced.
    A teacher from Oaxaca's Section 22, Othon Lavariega, said they would not allow voting stations to be set-up.
    "We are going to permanently and indefinitely take hold of the eleven district offices in the state, as agreed during our state assembly. We are not going to allow material to be taken in or out in these spaces, said Lavariega.
    The teachers are also occupying 15 delivery vehicles belonging to private companies and have set-up camp outside INE electoral offices in located in the Oaxaca City neighbourhoods of La Noria and Santa Lucia del Camino.
    Activists as well as diverse social groups in Oaxaca have threatened to suspend elections and have called for citizens not to vote nor to legitimise what they call the corrupt political class.
    Lorenzo Cordova, the president of Mexico's national electoral institute (INE), said the government won't install voting stations if they are blocked from doing so.
    "We can't do anything about that. We have to take all the precautions we can, within our possibilities, if it's possible to set up voting stations. If it's not possible, then it's not possible. We are doing what is necessary to make it possible. But we are talking about interlocutors who are not from the national electoral institute (INE). I insist, all their demands, the magisterial movement, the parents of Ayotzinapa (parents of missing 43 students) and so on expressions of social unconformity, are demands the institute has nothing to do with," he said.
    Last week, hundreds of people marched in Mexico City, eight months after the abduction and possible murder of 43 students in Iguala. At the end of their protest, the demonstrators set fire to political propaganda to show their contempt for all the political parties the electoral process.
    "We are not responsible of generating the conditions of security nor public stability so that the elections can take place. If those conditions don't exist and we, without risking our officials, are not capable of avoiding those conditions, then we won't install ballot boxes where they can't be placed," Cordova added.
    In another recent high-profile violent incident, Mexico's national security spokesman has denied that 42 suspected gang members killed in a recent gunfight near the Michoacan-Jalisco border, in which government forces suffered just one fatality, were executed after the one-sided death toll raised doubts.
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