Mexican protesters see electoral overhaul as a threat to democracy

MEXICO CITY — Juan Manuel Martinez remembers the days when he would vote in Mexico’s elections with no confidence that they were being run fairly.

For decades, the Institutional Revolutionary Party, known as the PRI, remained in power by buying votes or stuffing ballot boxes. Election after election, the same story repeated itself.

“No election was clean, democracy didn’t exist, the government both controlled the elections and was the referee, which isn’t right,” said Martinez, a retired 70-year-old accountant. “We always knew that they were tricking us, that the candidate that was always going to win was from the PRI.”