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 News Around the Republic of Mexico | May 2005 
Electoral Officials Offer Resignation
 Juan José Arreola - El Universal
| | PRD supporters protest in front of the State of Mexico Electoral Institute on Wednesday (Photo: Jorge Alvarado/El Universal) |
Mexico City - Councilors presiding over the State of Mexico Electoral Institute (IEEM) that oversees local elections resigned on Wednesday after pressure continued to build over allegations they accepted millions of pesos in bribes.
State of Mexico lawmakers approved the resignation of the seven councilors from their posts. In a press conference, lawmaker Cipriano Gutiérrez said their continued presence overseeing the electoral body threatened to damage the legitimacy of the elections scheduled for July 3.
"We have agreed to accept the resignation of the electoral councilors," Gutiérrez said. "This is a safeguard to the accuracy, impartiality, objectivity and transparency of the elections."
He did not take questions from reporters.
The state assembly now must choose seven new councilors next week.
Before the announcement, representatives from the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD), National Action Party (PAN), Labor Party (PT) and Convergence Party had joined forces on Wednesday to clamor for the councilors' removal.
The scandal broke last week when Ricardo Monreal, the former governor of Zacatecas and the PRD's representative to the IEEM, told the media of allegations that the councilors were favoring a local company that had offered them millions of pesos in return for a contract to make the state's ballot boxes.
José Juan Gómez Urbina, head of the council, has said the allegations stemmed from a joke about bribes that councilors made when they were discussing the bidding process.
Initial reports stated the contract had not yet been awarded, but on Tuesday an official from the IEEM said the company in question, Cartonera Plástica, has already been paid 32 million pesos (US2.93 million).
Another company offered a bid that was significantly lower than the one accepted by the IEEM.
However, IEEM secretary general Emmanuel Villicaña also said that two audits have already been carried out and neither has revealed any wrongdoing.
The State of Mexico, which surrounds the capital on three sides, is the nation's most populous state with over 13 million inhabitants. Recent polls have shown the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) candidate, Enrique Peña Nieto, with a lead over Rubén Mendoza of the PAN and Yeidckol Polevnsky of the PRD. |
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