- Title: MEXICO-ELECTION/CLASHES Clashes break out on eve of midterm elections in Mexico
- Date: 7th June 2015
- Summary: HUAJUAPAN DE LEON, OAXACA, MEXICO (JUNE 6, 2015) (REUTERS) VARIOUS OF CLASHES BETWEEN POLICE IN RIOT GEAR AND PROTESTING TEACHERS PROTESTERS CARRY CAPTURED AND INJURED POLICE TIXTLA, GUERRERO, MEXICO (JUNE 6, 2015) (REUTERS) VARIOUS OF PROTESTERS HOLDING POSTERS OF 43 MISSING STUDENTS VARIOUS OF PROTEST MARCH INCLUDING POSTER THAT SAYS, "I WILL TRADE IN MY VOTE FOR THE 43
- Embargoed: 22nd June 2015 13:00
- Keywords:
- Location: Mexico
- Country: Mexico
- Topics: General
- Reuters ID: LVA7TA70DOQ9IZR2Y8QHYNC0GFMN
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Story Text: Anti-government protesters in Mexico organised demonstrations and clashed with riot police Saturday (June 6) to begin their attempt to halt Mexico's midterm elections scheduled for Sunday (June 7). At least two police officers were captured by protesters in Oaxaca.
Mexico's government has moved about 40,000 federal police, soldiers and marines into several restive southern states to try to safeguard the election.
The forces will be spread among Oaxaca, Chiapas, Guerrero and Michoacan states, where a union and radical groups have vowed to disrupt the vote. Political candidates have even been targeted for murder by anti-government activists angered over Mexico's enduring internal strife and gang violence that has claimed more than 100,000 lives since 2007. In one particularly high-profile case of violence from last September, 43 student teachers in Guerrero state went missing, resulting in uprisings from protesters demanding answers.
The lower house of Mexico's Congress, nine state governorships and more than 1,000 posts in state legislatures and mayors' offices are up for grabs in Sunday's election. The election marks the first time that voters will be able to provide a de facto referendum on Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto's rule since he took office in 2012 on a vow to focus on economic development.
A splinter teachers union as well as other activist groups have in recent days sowed chaos in the states including Oaxaca, burning ballots and attacking the offices of local political parties, among other disruptions. On Saturday, the protesters were met with riot police and targeted with tear gas. They fought back by throwing stones and went on to capture two police officers.
Offices of Mexico's National Electoral Institute (INE) are being targeted by vandals in the state. In total, INE is planning on set up 5,000 voting booths for the Sunday vote in Oaxaca.
Guerrero state, where 43 trainee teachers were abducted and almost certainly massacred last year by a drug cartel in league with local police, has been hardest hit by the electoral violence. The tension continued on election eve as 500 protesters marched against the government and the elections.
"We are here to inform everyone that they should try and support us making sure the ballot boxes are not accessible for the elections taking place in Guerrero tomorrow. Why? Because the 43 students are missing. Because there's impunity, injustice, there's a lack of security. The whole system is rotten," Meliton Ortega, a father of one of the missing students, told Reuters.
Still, in Sunday's legislative elections, polls forecast the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, should retain a slim working majority in the lower house of Congress, partly as the main opposition parties are riven by division.
Pena Nieto is a few seats short of a majority in the Senate, which is not up for re-election until 2018.
Under his presidency, the murder rate has fallen in troubled parts of northern Mexico, but violence has jumped in western areas, including the country's second biggest city, Guadalajara. - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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