Cardinals exhort Mexicans to thwart fraud by showing up at the polls

Mexico City, Mexico, May 29, 2006 / 22:00 pm

The Archbishop of Mexico City, Cardinal Norberto Rivera Carrera, exhorted Mexicans this week to vote to maintain the peace his country is currently enjoying and to thwart voter fraud by showing up at the polls on July 2.

The cardinal said all Mexicans should exercise their right and duty to vote in the country’s presidential elections, and he rejected claims that the Church is backing a specific candidate through its educational program on politics and faith.  The program has been reviewed by the Mexican government on three separate occasions.

In Guadalajara, Cardinal Juan Sandoval Íñiguez advised Mexicans to “not only listen to what the candidates are promising, how they speak and what they say—because they all do that well—but also to analyze, research and be interested in finding out about their moral quality and history; look at what they have done and how they have acted in their different public offices.”

“And I say this both for those who aspire to federal office as well as to state and local office in the executive and legislative branch.  Pay attention to the quality of persons, because that way your vote, as has been so often said, will be reasoned out, with full knowledge, free and secret,” the cardinal said.