Eduardo Verástegui and the digitization of signatures
Diego Martín Velázquez Caballero
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The presidential candidate of the extreme right in Mexico has indicated that technology dislocates his proposal to participate in the 2024 elections. Although there are a couple of months left for Verástegui to gather the number of electronic signatures necessary to fulfill the requirements that the National Electoral Institute demands, the task seems titanic without the support of the powers that be; particularly the religious and economic ones.
What is happening with the electoral strongholds of the extreme right? Well nothing. That it is truly difficult to use digital applications, the INE platform and the available time of supporters in any organization, to individually incorporate support for candidates or parties. Once again, although the defenders of the INE and its cyber elements believe otherwise, it is more than true that the door has been closed to form new political parties, formalize independent candidacies and support social causes against the Mexican government.
Even though the PRIANRD believes that the INE represents the liberal democratic channel through which everyone can participate in favor of the Mexican interest; it isn't true. INE technology serves to maintain the status quo of the contemporary partyocracy that denies political participation, individual and organized, in a more than totalitarian way. Technology cannot be an instrument to exclude people; However, in the case of political participation it can be attested that it harms the legitimate right to vote and be voted for.
Citizen candidates cannot participate in the face of the technological judgment represented by the digitalization of individual support. Organizations that intend to become political parties at the regional or national level find it more than impossible to hold assemblies or gather the necessary militancy to meet the requirements that the electoral laws request. It is time to think about opening the doors of the electoral system in our country in the face of a reality of partyocracy and transfuguism.
Digital mafias and lobbyists at the service of internal groups of the INE manage to charge several million pesos so that they can compete with traditional political parties. The same thing happens in the party system as in the fields where some members have structured the monopoly: soccer, transportation, television, radio or newspapers. It is necessary to pay expensive floor fees over a long period of time to remain in the circuit, as is still done in the case of many notaries.
A democracy that closes its doors cannot be considered such. Hence, it is essential to modify the electoral system in Mexico and, within it, the rules for integrating and financing parties, as well as the difficult area of citizen candidacies.