MEXICO CITY — Tens of 1000’s of demonstrators cloaked in pink marched via cities in Mexico and overseas on Sunday in what they referred to as a “march for democracy” concentrating on the nation’s ruling get together in advance of the nation’s June 2 elections.

The demonstrations referred to as by Mexico’s opposition events advocated for free and honest elections in the Latin American nation and railed in opposition to corruption the identical day presidential front-runner Claudia Sheinbaum registered as a candidate for ruling get together Morena. Approximately 90,000 individuals turned out to rail in opposition to the chief, based on authorities figures.

Read More: The Ultimate Election Year: All the Elections Around the World in 2024

Sheinbaum is basically seen as a continuation candidate of Mexico’s extremely widespread populist chief Andrés Manuel López Obrador. He’s adored by many citizens who say he bucked the nation’s elite events from energy in 2018 and represents the working class.

But the 70-year-old president has additionally been accused of making strikes that endanger the nation’s democracy. Last yr, the chief slashed funding for the nation’s electoral company, the National Electoral Institute, and weakened oversight of marketing campaign spending, one thing INE’s head mentioned may “wind up poisoning democracy itself.” The company’s coloration, pink, has been used as an emblem by demonstrators.

Read More: As Electoral Protests Swirl, Mexico’s President Goes Viral For Tweeting ‘Proof’ of a Mystical Elf

López Obrador has additionally attacked journalists in hours-long press briefings, has ceaselessly attacked Mexico’s judiciary and claimed judges are half of a conservative conspiracy in opposition to his administration.

In Mexico City on Sunday, 1000’s of individuals dressed in pink flocked to the the town’s essential plaza roaring “get López out.” Others carried indicators studying “the power of the people is greater than the people in power.”

Among the opposition organizations marching had been National Civic Front, Yes for Mexico, Citizen Power, Civil Society Mexico, UNE Mexico and United for Mexico.

“Democracy doesn’t solve lack of water, it doesn’t solve hunger, it doesn’t solve a lot of things. But without democracy you can’t solve anything,” said Enrique de la Madrid Cordero, a prominent politician from the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, in a video posted to social media calling for people to join the protests.

The PRI held uninterrupted power in Mexico for more than 70 years.

Marches were organized in a hundred cities across the country, and in other cities in the United States and Spain.

Still, the president remains highly popular and opinion polls indicate his ally Sheinbaum appears set to coast easily into the presidency.

López Obrador repeatedly dismissed the protests, telling reporters Friday that his critics don’t care about democracy and are organizing the march to return the corrupt to power.

Following the massive demonstration, the leader continued to rail on critics, and said there would be no electoral fraud in the election and that he had not intervened in democratic processes.

“It’s their democracy … the democracy of the corrupt. What we want is there to be democracy of the people. We don’t want power without the people. They’re the one’s that establish an anti-democracy with electoral fraud,” López Obrador mentioned.