Washington Post, November 28, 2022
By the Editorial BoardThe United States is not the only North American democracy at risk from a president’s belief that he is a victim of election rigging. In Mexico, left-wing populist Andrés Manuel López Obrador lost the 2006 presidential election by less than one percentage point, cried fraud, and refused to concede even after election courts unanimously rejected his claims. He then mobilized supporters to blockade [el Paseo de la Reforma] a busy [and politically symbolic] thoroughfare in the nation’s capital.
MV Note: El Paseo de la Reforma is not just any urban "thoroughfare". It starts at the foot of Chapultepec Castle, once the home of Mexican presidents on Chapultepec Hill, and, mid-way, it is dominated by a tall, narrow pedestal supporting the golden Angel of Independence statue. That is the starting point of virtually every political protest march held in Mexico City. They always end in the Zócalo, the huge plaza in front of the National Palace, symbolic center of the Mexican government and home of the President.
Though Mr. López Obrador ultimately relented and presidents from other parties governed through 2018, he remained obsessed with 2006. Now that he is president — having won an undisputed election in 2018 — Mr. López Obrador is bent on remaking the electoral system he still blames for cheating him more than 16 years ago.
The president’s proposals threaten the system’s independence and with it Mexico’s hard-won transition from authoritarianism to multiparty democracy. The crucial institution Mr. López Obrador seeks to transform — the National Electoral Institute — signed off on his 2018 win. He nevertheless portrays the panel, known by its Spanish-language initials, INE, as biased, elitist, and wasteful of taxpayer money...
The president’s proposals threaten the system’s independence and with it Mexico’s hard-won transition from authoritarianism to multiparty democracy. The crucial institution Mr. López Obrador seeks to transform — the National Electoral Institute — signed off on his 2018 win. He nevertheless portrays the panel, known by its Spanish-language initials, INE, as biased, elitist, and wasteful of taxpayer money...
Public opinion polls show that substantial majorities of Mexicans approve of the INE’s work. A recent European Union fact-finding mission concluded that Mexico’s existing system works and enjoys public trust — and that Mr. López Obrador’s plan “carries an inherent risk of undermining such trust.”
An increasing number of Mexicans rightly suspect that Mr. López Obrador is trying to perpetuate his party’s [Morena, the Movement for National Regeneration, founded by López Óbrador in 2014] dominance even after his term ends in 2024, mimicking the authoritarian system that prevailed under the Institutional Revolutionary Party during the 20th century...
An increasing number of Mexicans rightly suspect that Mr. López Obrador is trying to perpetuate his party’s [Morena, the Movement for National Regeneration, founded by López Óbrador in 2014] dominance even after his term ends in 2024, mimicking the authoritarian system that prevailed under the Institutional Revolutionary Party during the 20th century...
MV Note: In the election of 2018, in both chambers of Congress, Morena won supermajorities of two-thirds of the members needed to make changes to the Constitution. It also won a majority of the heads of sixteen boroughs in Mexico City, state governorships and state legislatures. It lost its supermajority in the lower Chamber of Deputies in the mid-term 2021 elections, but still holds a simple majority there.
López Óbrador's proposal to change the INE and other electoral components involves constitutional changes. Lacking a supermajority in the Chamber of Deputies, he is unlikely to achieve those changes. So the congressional delegates of his party, Morena, have a "Plan B" , i.e., to pass so-called "secondary" legislation, i.e. legislation specifying particular changes in general laws, in order to achieve as much as possible of López Óbrador's plan.