Mexico News Update. February 25, 2023.

Yasmin Esquivel Mossa

Regarding the case of Yasmin Esquivel Mossa, the Supreme Court Minister caught plagiarizing her bachelor’s degree thesis from the National Autonomous University of Mexico or UNAM, new activities and developments have come to light and have become public knowledge. For starters, she has utilized many legal resources to try to keep the scandal contained, by trying to obligate the UNAM to keep the investigation process and findings behind closed doors and avoid notifying the general public. The UNAM contested that initiative and actually won, so it will continue informing about the investigation and its findings as they go along.

On February 24, 2023, El Pais, a news media outlet from Spain that reports from many Latin American countries, published a report on another case of plagiarism on Yasmin Equivel Mossa. In this new report they exposed that 209 pages out of the 456 pages that are contained in her doctoral thesis presented in 2009 at the Anahuac University in Mexico were also copied from academic related texts from other authors without any reference or citation to the original documents, therefore implying that the contents are originally hers.

After this new scandal broke out, the Anahuac University published a letter stating that they acknowledge the claim, that they have reviewed the contents and that in the past they did not have tools to be able to technically identify plagiarism practices like the one exposed in this case. Nevertheless, after three years of a professional title being issued they do not have an internal recourse to cancel or invalidate the issued degree. Therefore they will respect it as valid, and that they have taken actions to avoid future integrity incidents from happening again.

As a result of both the finding and the Anahuac University’s response, protests on social media have gone wild pressing yet again for Yasmin Esquivel Mossa’s destitution from her seat in Mexico’s Supreme Court of Justice.

26-F Massive Protest in Defense of the Electoral System

For tomorrow, February 26, 2023, a massive civilian protest has been planned against the B-Plan initiative that aims towards debilitating the National Elections Institute or INE. The B-Plan initiative was presented before the House of Representatives (Cámara de Diputados) and approved by the Morena party and its allies, and later on passed on to the Senate (Senado de la República), where it was also approved with a simple majority.

The B-Plan aims to do a massive budget cut to the INE’s budget which would affect the operational capabilities of the elections authority. The INE is an autonomous institute that issues the most widely accepted photo identity document in Mexico. It has been formed over time to create balance by having representation of all political parties and fractions. Now, after years of developing a nationwide footprint that guarantees with a solid process transparent (for the most part) elections, it is at risk with the proposed budget cuts.

Tomorrow’s massive protest has been organized in its majority by civilian organizations, and opposition parties––PRI, PAN and PRD, for the most part––have opted to tag along and support the protest initiative. The main organizers are Sociedad Civil MX, the Frente Civico Nacional or FCN, and Unid@s. The invitation is for citizens to go to Mexico City’s Main Square, also known as the Zocalo, tomorrow morning at 11:00 AM, and now there are over 100 cities across the country that have similar protest initiatives. They have invited people to dress in pink and white, as the colors used to support the protest against the B-Plan.

The overall initiative is to pressure Mexico’s Supreme Court of Justice to invalidate the B-Plan, which has many deep constitutional flaws. The protests are in addition to the lawsuits that said civilian organizations, political parties and the INE itself have presented before the Supreme Court, in order to invalidate said B-Plan.

As with the protests in Mexico City on November 13, 2022, there have been many actions from the Mexico City Government trying to boycott the protests. These have included declaring an environmental contingency claiming poor air quality in order to limit the use of as many motor vehicles as possible over the weekend, closure of access streets, reduction of runs on public transport, closure of nearby subway stations, and so on. The city has also invited many commercial establishments near the main square to close their business operations during the day to avoid looting and vandalisms from protesters. It is noteworthy to mention that during the protests on November 13, there were no incidents of violence, vandalism incidents, and no major trash left behind by protesters.

The protests, being the one in Mexico City the cornerstone of the ones in the rest of the country, are expected to be the greatest pacific civilian protest in Mexico in modern history.