It appears that the results of the June 6 election for mayor of San Miguel de Allende are still not conclusive, in spite of the District Electoral Council in San Miguel de Allende having delivered the results. They include the winners of the offices of mayor, and trustee, as well as four PRI council members, three MORENA council members, and three PAN council members. The election is in the process of being challenged with a possible annulment. This must be resolved by the state and federal courts prior to October 10, when the new city council is due to be sworn in. 

 

Almost a month later after the June 6 election, Luis Alberto Villarreal, the current mayor and PAN candidate for reelection, appeared at a “thank you lunch with party supporters. During the event he laid out several reasons why he is contesting the election. Among these, he referred to Mauricio Trejo, saying: “During the first 30-60 days of the campaign, the candidate to whom the victory is attributed did not report a single event to the electoral authority. He did not campaign for 30 days. When he submitted a report, he said there were 64 events; we counted 124.”

 

Villarreal said that his party (PAN) believes Trejo (PRI) exceeded the limit allowed by the authorities by 75 percent, and that after official campaigning was to stop, he solicited votes via Facebook. “This is another reason for nullification: he set up two sites on Facebook to solicit votes, and used them during the electoral campaign ban.”

 

Villarreal noted that according to the annulment appeals file, the plaintiffs held 124 events. Following these accusations, both Trejo and Villarreal launched attacks on social media. In a previous interview with Atencion, when questioned about the challenge process, Mayor-Elect Mauricio Trejo commented, “There is no possible annulment, because we know how the election went. The other parties know how we campaigned, how they campaigned. The only ones who played dirty are those who want to hold on to real estate deals and commitments that were made with who knows whom. I hope it was only commitments with businessmen, with the real estate mafia, and not with other people who are too scary to mention. It was a clean election (with the exception of Villarreal), and we know what is inside the ballot box.”