When Mexican presidential candidate Enrique Peña Nieto visited Mexico City’s Ibero University he encountered a large group of angry students. Students linked the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) candidate to former Mexican president Carlos Salinas de Gortari also of the same PRI party and called out Peña Nieto on his being governor during a bloody crackdown on students in the state of Atenco.
The day after the May 11, 2012 visit and speech, an Ibero University professor claimed that Peña Nieto was the victim of a group of non-student organized agitators. Students were angered by this and quickly gathered video clips of students showing their university identification cards and on how they were part of the protest. A larger video was put together to share all the clips and there ended up being 131 videos in all. Many other students were involved in the initial protest and all of them called themselves the “132nd” student which led to the “#YoSoy132” hashtag which means “I am the 132nd.”
The Election, July 1, 2012
I followed the #YoSoy132 hashtag today during the elections and there were thousands of people tweeting about voting, sharing photos of themselves voting, and passing along information on efforts to stem voting irregularities. These reports including claims that votes were being bought.
The above video has details on how things started and how the #YoSoy132 campaign grew into a major force. We will see if the campaign continues to organize, especially now that the news is out that Peña Nieto is the projected winner.
Related Reading:
YoSoy132: How A Mexican Student Movement Was Born (VIDEO)