Mexico’s president claimed overwhelming support Monday after a weekend referendum on a train project in the Yucatan Peninsula produced lopsided results in a limited vote.
President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said the so-called Mayan Train project will move forward after a vote Sunday in 84 municipalities in five states produced votes in favor, from 85% in Quintana Roo to 99% in Campeche. Still, only slightly more than 100,000 people voted in total.
The referendum occurred simultaneously with assemblies in the region’s indigenous communities. The government claimed near-unanimous support there as well.
Critics had questioned the availability of objective information about the project and its impacts following an informational blitz by the government.
The Mayan Train would run 950 miles (1,525 kilometers) around the peninsula. There are environmental and development concerns about the project, which is envisioned to carry tourists from the white sand beaches of the Mayan Riviera to the peninsula’s more remote interior.
There are already reports of land speculation and communities divided over whether to support the project. But the government will now use the referendum results to move ahead on a project that is up against a condensed timeline.
Rogelio Jimenez Pons, the head of the government tourism promotion agency charged with getting the train built, said Monday that contracts would be bid in early January and he hoped construction would begin in late March or early April.
López Obrador’s referenda on large public projects have been controversial. He used one before taking office to kill the previous administration’s massive new partially-built airport for the capital.
MAYAN TRAIN FRAUD
We warn you with every opportunity. The “popular consultation” carried out by the government of Andrés Manuel López Obrador, last weekend, in addition to constituting an illegality, it was a vile deception for the inhabitants of the 5 municipalities where the illegal was carried out consultation vote. The illegal thing is more than founded, come on, the disruption; We very much insist that the authorities can only do what the law empowers them through the law. Thus, the order given by the President of the Republic to carry out the consultation has no legal basis, not provided for in the Constitution in article 35 section VIII; Nor in any secondary law. Then the order he gave to the Director of the National Institute of Indigenous Peoples (INPI), Adelfo Regino Montes, to operate the illegal survey, suffers from the same illegality and the Director incurred administrative responsibility, if not also criminal; The Director does not have the attribution ordered by the President of the Republic. Therefore, the indigenous peoples of the 85 municipalities in which they installed 269 directives were scammed by the President of the Republic; It should be added that the consultation was carried out, by orders of López Obrador himself, in November of last year and the result, in that other “faramalla” or “duck consultation”, won the presidential proposal since then: to build the Mayan Train. That is another reason for cheating, for machine fraud. On this occasion, only 81 thousand 150 voters attended, from a universe that is unknown, hence the fallacy that it was 75% of the total communities that approved the completion of the work and the destruction of flora and fauna of hundreds of kilometers of the area where the railroad will pass. Curiously, as never before, there was not a single null vote Ah barbaros! By the way, they did not communicate to the locals the damages that they will cause (directly to them) to their immense natural wealth, due to the damages that the civil work will generate. On the ballots, nothing is said about it. for the damages that the civil work will generate. On the ballots, nothing is said about it. for the damages that the civil work will generate. On the ballots, nothing is said about it.
More illegalities of the “popular consultation”! Where did the Director of the Indigenous Peoples get the budget if he has no public money for it? Who authorized the public budget for the consultation? Who formed the box management tables? Who endorsed the counting and counting of votes? How much did the operation cost? Who and where did the total calculation of the 5 municipalities, namely: Campeche, Chiapas, Quintana Roo, Tabasco and Yucatan. In addition to the accumulation of irregularities, both legal and political, it was a real offense for these indigenous peoples, to whom the government of 4T, offered the completion of works so that they approved, through their vote, the realization of the works that the originals asked for. It was neither more nor less than the shameless purchase of the vote that the President of the Republic hates and rejects so much. It was nothing more than a presidential deception that offends Mexicans as a whole, a manipulation of bad faith to indigenous peoples, an “electoral fraud” if it can be called that, the one who intends to punish the lopist government with jail and without the right to bond. In the game of deception, they also committed fraud and manipulated the media, the majority only see the matter superficially, and by no means enter the fund analysis; Some, even applaud the fraud, I don’t know if due to ignorance or for other reasons that you, fine reader, can get as a conclusion.
Too dirty the presidential game. He could well do the “theater”, without committing machine fraud, come on even if he has no attribution for it, at least show the respect that indigenous peoples deserve. The Director of the Indigenous Peoples said that 75% of the towns approved the construction And the remaining 25% that did not approve it, are not taken into account? In the morning conference on Monday, they questioned the President about the refusal of the members of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN), who live in the Lacandon jungle; López Obrador, “hit” the question and gave no answer. The members of that organization (they are several towns in the area), have approximately 30 years of existence, armed civil group that is perfectly organized, they warned the President that they would not allow the passage, for its area of influence, of the railroad tracks. A pending and unanswered issue by the President, although it should be remembered that they were threatened by the same head of the Executive Branch. López Obrador, can “let go of the tiger”, in his own words.
Presidential deception has no name. In the current year, the budget was authorized to start the work of the Mayan train, then why evidence the “electoral fraud” and make it clear? Is it about testing the ability of deceit and mediatization of lies to make it seem true? I think so, the President has given evidence of being able to do that and more. All that remains is for Andrés Manuel López Obrador himself to break down his government’s commitments to the indigenous peoples of those 5 States and the economic cost of compliance with them. This figure will raise the budget of the work, since they were not contemplated within the Decree of Expenditures, just approved by the Morena bench, in the Chamber of Deputies, where will the millions of pesos committed come from? By the way, Nor was it said who the negotiators of the President of the Republic were. Conclusion. A vile fraud the illegal “popular consultation”; Violent any legal framework, does not resist the slightest legal analysis of legality and if that were not enough, fraudulent the query But what a need! This is how the government of the Fourth Transformation is managed, for that and many more reasons, there is no investment that drives the national economy, there is no legal certainty in government acts; Given this unfortunate panorama, the only thing left is to repress private investment. This is how the government of the Fourth Transformation is managed, for that and many more reasons, there is no investment that drives the national economy, there is no legal certainty in government acts; Given this unfortunate panorama, the only thing left is to repress private investment. This is how the government of the Fourth Transformation is managed, for that and many more reasons, there is no investment that drives the national economy, there is no legal certainty in government acts; Given this unfortunate panorama, the only thing left is to repress private investment.
BY HÉCTOR PARRA RODRÍGUEZ
Source: informativodequeretaro.com, notimex
The Mazatlan Post