Isaac Montoya, local deputy of Morena in the State of Mexico, went on Sunday, June 5, to the city of Aguascalientes as part of a strategic deployment of his party to “take care” of the election in which the governorship would be renewed. At noon, when he and his team had identified a house where the vote was allegedly being bought, elements of the municipal police arrested them, handcuffed them and transferred them to the separations, where they were held incommunicado and held for several hours.
The police accused the militants of disturbing public order and using high-sounding words against them, a “crime” that does not exist in the catalog of administrative offenses of the state, according to the legislator’s account.
Montoya says that in the separations — where he remained for seven hours — he found 20 other party members who were documenting electoral irregularities that day as detainees. Therefore, considers the deputy, it was an operation from the state and municipal governments to favor the candidate of the Va por México alliance, Teresa Jiménez, who was the virtual winner.
In an interview, Montoya warns that Morena’s legal team is working on a legal strategy in two ways: the electoral one, through a challenge to the results in which the elements of alleged purchase of the vote in favor of the PAN-PRI-PRD block will be included, and the administrative-criminal one, through a complaint before the State and Municipal Comptroller’s Office and a complaint before the Attorney General’s Office, for the alleged improper exercise of functions by police, ministerial officers and a local judge.
Members of the National Executive Committee (CEN) of Morena confirmed Political Animal that this week the challenge to the election to renew the governorship of Aguascalientes will be promoted for acts of “institutionalized violence” and possible purchase and coercion of the vote.
This media established contact with the government of Aguascalientes through its social communication directorate to request a position regarding Morena’s accusations. The outgoing administration of PAN member Martín Orozco assured that no state element participated in the arrests, and that its tasks consisted of attending to citizen complaints of irregularities in the day.
“The General Secretariat of Government, as well as the Secretariat of State Public Security, were attentive to guarantee citizens a peaceful day in which the vote of the voters could be cast in a free and calm manner. In the operation that was carried out for this purpose, coordination actions were carried out with the electoral authorities and the Specialized Prosecutor’s Office in Electoral Crimes, who indicated the places that needed to be monitored, according to citizen reports,” he said.
A request for positioning was also sent to the mayor of Aguascalientes, headed by Leonardo Montañez, of the PAN-PRD alliance, given that the main officials indicated are municipal police. At press time, no response had been received.
Read: After the elections, Morena is shaping up to govern in 20 of 32 entities in the country
Recounts “dehumanizing treatment”
“We detected that there were homes where the purchase of the vote was taking place: people arrived with their fingers marked, they passed and left very happy with some packages, and that’s when they stopped us, we were recording what was happening, the police arrived and without mediation they go directly against us,” says Deputy Montoya.
“‘What do you do here, why do you bring plaques from the State of Mexico, who are you, who assures us that you don’t bring other people?’ They made us get out of the vehicle to make a check that we did not bring anything and they found that we did not bring anything, but even so it was not enough, suddenly they began to search us and, when we least feel it, with the handcuffs and with all the police brutality they subdue us, they put the handcuffs on us and they put us (in the patrol) without caring about anything. ”
The Mexican legislator accuses that the police exercised discriminatory and selective treatment to affect exclusively Morena sympathizers, including the control judge who described the detention of the militants as legal; He points out that on the day of June 5 they detected “shock groups” of the PAN that were in the streets, even near municipal patrols, none of which were arrested.
“Already being in the separations, there with the qualifying judge, we found the surprise that it was crowded with militants and sympathizers of Morena and that there was no PAN member,” she says.
“Already when we were finally able to leave, in view of the arbitrarinessThe use and abuse of force and selective justice, because we already realized the dimension, that it was a slogan to arrest all the people who could be seen as sympathizers or militants of Morena, regardless of whether they were not committing an administrative offense, because what was accused of all the comrades and citizens was of two alleged administrative faults, which was disturbance of public order and use of high-sounding words against elements of the police.”
The deputy disseminated on his social networks a video in which a group of uniformed and hooded men are warned to leave in two vehicles in the presence of municipal police.
“The way (to separation) was what hundreds or thousands of citizens suffer who are accused of offenses they do not commit: an unworthy treatment, a dehumanizing treatment, your handcuffs are squeezed to the point of strangling you and they take you there glued a tube, and the whole procedure is completely brutal. There were many people for different reasons who were there beaten by the police elements,” says Montoya.
“Already inside the cells, simply the conditions, as in all detention centers, quite unhygienic, without the slightest sanitation there and that there is no protocol for the issue that still persists of COVID.”
Montoya, who was secretary of Youth of the CEN of Morena, considers that the virtual triumph of the candidate Teresa Jiménez – who won with 20 points of difference to Nora Ruvalcaba, of Morena – is necessarily related to the improper use of public institutions on the day of the election.
“Evidently, the now virtual governor-elect resorted to the worst practices to ensure a result, they were dedicating themselves to two things: using the police, the center of the political operation was the municipal police to intimidate the adversaries, the dissidents, and to feed the mobilization and ensure the largest vote for the PAN candidate. We are on the road because of the abuse of authority, the abuse of the police and also the way in which the qualifying judge was conducted, but also on the side of the challenge, of course this is integrated and added to the fact that it was the constant on Sunday, “he says.
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