Mexico City, June 27, 2021
Legislators from the PAN, PRI and PRD (National Action, Institutional Revolution and Democratic Revolution Parties) are seeking an agreement to guarantee that the organization of the Chamber of Deputies (lower chamber) of the 65th Congress respects the elected percentages of the various parties and that Morena (Movement for National Regeneration, party created in 2014 by now President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, aka AMLO) does not again seek an "artificial" majority...
The PAN will be the second strongest party with 113 deputies, and the PRI the third with 71. The PRD will have 16 legislators.
In the negotiations among the opposition parties, they are seeking to avoid the "trafficking" of legislators (changing official party membership) in order to give Morena a majority by itself. This would enable it to take control of the governing bodies of the Chamber for the three years of the Congress. Three years ago, the Green Party gave Morena 5 deputies so that it kept the leadership of the Political Coordination Board during the three years of the Legislature.
If no party has a majority, both the head of the Political Coordination Board and the presidency of the Board of Directors will have to rotate among the three main parties, each one for one year, as directed in the Organic Law of Congress. The rotation also includes the chairmanship of the Administration Committee which authorizes all the expenses of the Lower Chamber.
PAN member Jorge Romero said:
"We are going to fully defend what the law says and, above all, the mandate given by citizens at the polls for a greater plurality (of parties). We want the original numerical composition to be respected as the people decided,"
Luis Espinosa Cházaro, who will be the PRD coordinator, said:
"Jorge Romero, for the PAN; Rubén Moreira, for the PRI, and I, for the PRD, are clear that we are not going to allow the slight-of-hand to happen again. There will have to be a rotation; each of the three major parties will have a one-year turn."
...In addition, they are seeking a consensus...to prevent legislative reforms that attack the autonomous agencies (various agencies, such as the National Electoral Commission and Institute for Access to Information, established to be free of interference by the Executive or Legislative branches) or that violate the Constitution. They are also seeking an agreement regarding the Federal Expenditure Budget.
MV Note: The Mexican Constitution contains articles establishing the basic structures and rules for virtually every department, agency and state-owned business (oil and electricity) of the government, so initiatives to reform those institutions first require the passage of changes to relevant articles of the Constitution. Passage requires a two-thirds majority in both chambers of the Congress and then in a majority of the thirty-two states.
Morena, with its allied parties, had such a super-majority in the Chamber of Deputies during the three years of the previous Congress and, thus, could easily pass such changes to the Constitution. They did this to revoke the Education Reforms passed during the preceding administration of Enrique Peña Nieto.
López Obrador also wants to revoke the Energy Reform passed during the Peña Nieto administration, It opened the oil and electricity markets to competition by private companies, forcing the state-owned companies, PEMEX and CFE, to become competitive and profitable. With the loss of two-thirds of the votes in the Chamber of Deputies, AMLO has lost the power to make the constitutional changes he desires. The previous Congress already passed an energy law that would appear to violate the Energy Reforms in the Constitution. The Supreme Court will likely rule on the law's constitutionality.