Mexico’s electoral agency removed the electoral registration of a party candidate in the government who was named despite the rape charges against him – but the action was made for technical reasons and not because of the allegations.
The decision drew the ire of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who defended candidate Félix Salgado and criticized groups of women who opposed his candidacy.
“This is an attack on democracy,” said López Obrador on Friday, saying that “the powerful interests of the mafia” wanted Salgado to be disqualified as a candidate for government in the southern state of Guerrero. “This is undemocratic.”
The National Electoral Institute decided on Thursday night that Salgado did not report the money he spent during the primaries and that his candidacy would no longer be officially recognized.
Mexico will hold intermediate state and federal elections on June 6.
Salgado won the Morena de López Obrador party nomination earlier this month, despite protests by women’s rights activists. He did not personally address the charges, although his lawyer denied them.
Salgado promised on Friday to fight the decision in court, calling it “rude and arbitrary”, but did not say whether he reported all the expenses required by Mexican electoral laws.
Salgado was chosen as a candidate by a vote with members of the Morena party, despite protests across the country against the fact that two women accused him of rape.
López Obrador was stung by protests against his government for his refusal to break with Salgado. The president said the issue should be left to voters in Guerrero and says it is being raised by his opponents, “the conservatives”.
Salgado was not charged; the limitation period has expired in one case and the other is still being investigated.
Salgado, who goes by the surname Torus, or “Bull”, is a former federal legislator and mayor of Acapulco, known for his questionable behavior in the past. He was filmed fighting with the police in Mexico City in 2000.
Former Guerrero state prosecutor Xavier Olea told the Associated Press that the current Guerrero governor, Héctor Astudillo, ordered him in 2017 not to investigate one of the rape charges against Salgado, although Astudillo denies this.