Mexico City, Mexico, May 10, 2005 / 22:00 pm
The archbishop of Mexico City, Cardinal Norberto Rivera Carrera, is calling on presidential candidates to make a “national agreement” that would ensure that next year’s elections be carried out in an atmosphere of peace and tranquility.
Cardinal Rivera maintained that unity and dialogue “are the things Mexico needs…and I hope as well that there will be an invitation to make a national agreement.” The cardinal believes the agreement is needed in order to ensure tranquility in the electoral process “so that everything will be carried out peacefully.”
The cardinal warned that otherwise, the danger exists that candidates and the main political parties will not respect each other and the country’s institutions and laws will be ignored, leading to “unrest.”
The secretary general of the Mexican Bishops Conference, Bishop Carlos Aguiar Retes of Texcoco, referred to the elections as well saying, “Dialogue is very positive. But how far it will go and how much it will benefit the country depends solely on the political will of each party to this dialogue. I hope this happens and that it contributes to peaceful and democratic elections; this is the challenge once the possibility for dialogue is established.”