Thread by @KurtHackbarth

1. #PRI's gonna PRI: the candidate for governor of the State of Nuevo León, Mexico is trying to buy votes.

Adrián de la Garza's campaign has distributed pink debit cards, promising women a bimonthly stipend will be deposited into it if he wins.

2. Electoral law is crystal clear in this respect. Article 7 imposes fines and a sentence of six months to three years in prison for those who (Section VI) "seek votes through payment, promise of money or other compensation."

(*Click on image to see full page.*)

3. At his press conference denouncing the act, AMLO asked, "Where's the INE?"

Answer: busy contradicting itself. Here's @CiroMurayamaINE saying one thing in 2017 and the exact opposite in 2021, even though the law on this is even clearer now than then.

https://twitter.com/SinLinea_Mx/status/1392946251319201794?s=20

4. Here's @lorenzocordovav of the INE, getting in on the act, explaining in 2017 why such cards amounted to "wrongful campaign spending."

Not what he's saying now.

https://twitter.com/SinLinea_Mx/status/1392935739420200965?s=20

5. As we've seen in previous elections - most notoriously in the presidential election of 2012 - the INE's trick is to pretend that it can't intervene in such matters until after the election is over and the winner is announced, by which time it's already too late.

6. So instead of watching this cycle play out again and again, the Attorney General's Office stepped in and announced it would be investigating De La Garza -and another candidate in the same race, Samuel García- for possible electoral crimes.

politica.expansion.mx/mexico/2021/05…

7. The investigation will be carried out by the formerly toothless Special Prosecutor's Office for Electoral Crimes (FEPADE), which has a chance to finally show its relevance.

8. This announcement -which should be standard operating procedure in every election- caused the INE to freak out & descend into the above-mentioned contortions of self-contradiction.

De La Garza, meanwhile, fled the country for the safety of Washington.

proceso.com.mx/nacional/2021/…

9. There, he met with Congresspeople such as @RepCarbajal, @RepFilemonVela and @RepGonzalez, who apparently have no problem posing for pictures with an electoral delinquent.

https://twitter.com/AdrianDeLaGarza/status/1392299006018166788?s=20

10. De La Garza also found time to go cry to the head of the #OAS, Luis Almagro (he who legitimized the Bolivia coup), that AMLO was "attacking democracy and freedoms."

That is, the freedom to buy votes, which the PRI once enjoyed with impunity.

https://twitter.com/AdrianDeLaGarza/status/1392543530829111308?s=20

11. What is actually happening is that, in the absence of action from a hapless, complicit Electoral Institute, another power is stepping in to stop electoral crimes *before* they occur, instead of conveniently waiting to close the barn door once the horse has been stolen. /END