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Video of Mexican Official Mocking Indigenous Peoples Goes Viral

  • Lorenzo Cordova formally apologies for racist comments made about indigenous peoples.

    Lorenzo Cordova formally apologies for racist comments made about indigenous peoples. | Photo: @INEMex

Published 19 May 2015
Opinion

The head of Mexico’s National Electoral Institute was forced to apologise after a recorded phone conversation leaked. 

The director of Mexico’s National Electoral Institute (INE) is coming under heavy fire and calls for his resignation after an audio was uploaded on Tuesday afternoon of the public servant allegedly mocking indigenous peoples and the families of the disappeared 43 Ayotzinapa students. The video has gone viral.

Lorenzo Cordova, head of the agency that guarantees and organizes national elections can be heard on a recorded telephone conversation with Edmundo Molina, Executive Secretary of the INE, ridiculing indigenous leaders who participated in a meeting with the bureaucrat, denouncing the electoral process.

“From the dramatic meetings with the parents of the Ayotzinapa kids, to this jerk…There was one, no shit, I can’t lie, let me tell you how this jerk spoke,” said Cordova. The director continued in a voice mimicking the indigenous participants of the meeting: “I boss, great nation Chichimeca, I come Guanajuato. I say here or legislators, for us, I don’t permit your elections.”

Cordova continued, in a loud laugh: “I see a lot of ‘Lone Ranger’, with this jerk ‘bull’, no shit, he only lacked saying ‘I great sitting bull chief, great leader of Chichimeca nation’, no shit, no shit, it is of horror man.”

The INE did not reject the authenticity of the audio, and later on Tuesday issued a press release in which it said it expressed its “indignation” for these kinds of activities. However it also denounced the audio as an “illegal intervention”.

“With this detection of an illegal intervention of telephone conversations between the Council President and the Executive Secretary of the National Electoral Institute (INE), today a formal penal complaint has been filed with the Attorney General’s office.”

Late on Tuesday, Cordova formally apologized for the comments made on the April 24th conversation. He said in the brief press conference, “I offer a frank apology if I offended anyone with my comments.”

It is still unclear who recorded the telephone conversation, however speculation circulates as to the motivation with only weeks until Mexico’s June 7th midterm elections.

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