Reforma, Mexico City, November 26, 2022
By Claudia Salazar and Martha Martinez
Regarding the proposal for political-electoral reform, the Morena [Movement for National Regeneration] faction in the Chamber of Deputies [lower house of Congress] plans to repeat the formula [it has used for other regressive reforms] of imposing the vision of the president without room for negotiations.
The strategy is to present legislation that is a copy of the initiative presented by the president [Andrés Manuel López Obrador, aka AMLO], without accepting any negotiation with the opposition parties for modifying the bills, and then blaming the Opposition for not attending to the demands of citizen's.
As happened with the reform of the provision of electrical power [returning priority control to the state-owned Federal Electrical Commission, CFE, after a reform by the previous administration of Enrique Peña Nieto opened the electricity market to private competition], with the electoral initiative, Morena, which holds a simple majority in the chamber, is ignoring the proposals and remarks made in the Open Parliament that was convened to analyze the issue and on which 20 million pesos [US$1 million] were spent.
As happened with the energy reform, the President's electoral proposal [which proposes changes to the Constitution] is headed for defeat next week because it will not reach the two-thirds of the deputies' votes required for constitutional changes.
In a joint session of the Electoral and Political Reform, Constitutional Issues, and Government committees, Morena presented draft legislation that incorporated the most controversial aspects of the presidential initiative.
The reform abolishes the National Electoral Institute (INE) and proposes a new body called the National Institute for Elections and Consultations [Referendums] (INEC). It also proposes changing the method of electing councilors for the INEC governing commission and judges of the electoral courts [courts that only hear complaints of violations of election law].
Furthermore, it modifies the system for electing congressional deputies and senators. Instead of individual candidates competing for votes, lists of candidates proposed by each party in each state will be presented for voting. [Citizens will vote for one party's entire list.] Debate on the legislation will resume next week.
Two weeks ago [Sunday, November 13], tens of thousands of citizens all over the country marched in different locations with the motto, "INE is not to be touched", rejecting the disappearance of the INE and demanding that the deputies vote against the legislation.
For the coordinator of Morena [deputies in the Chamber of Deputies], Ignacio Mier, the citizens' protest was not significant [likewise, President López Obrador dismissed it as insignificant]. He said that it was led by "the elite" and the mobilization was "minimal", but the leaders want to give the perception that it was "gigantic", which it was not.
For this reason, he said, the Electoral and Political Reform Committee distributed draft legislation that followed the president's initiative. From Morena's point of view, it will reduce the cost of the electoral institution and electoral councilors will be impartial...
...During the joint session of the committees, the deputy coordinator of the PRD [leftist Party of the Democratic Revolution], Elizabeth Pérez, pointed out that, despite the fact that a Special Working Group was created by consensus to analyze 107 proposals on electoral matters, it never met. The PRD member lamented that the draft legislation released yesterday, which will be voted on by the full Chamber of Deputies on Monday, is the same one sent by the president.
"Yes, the INE is abolished and it is changed to something called INEC; government propaganda is replaced by information campaigns, and radio and television time available to the INEC is reduced to 12 minutes a day in non-electoral time periods," she warned.
PAN [conservative National Action Party] deputy Humberto Aguilar said that it is foreseeable that Morena and its allies intend to impose a "predawn raid" by presenting reforms to secondary [implementing] laws, their so-called "plan B", which will not need the votes of the opposition parties to approve it quickly.
He recommended that Morena not attempt the disappearance of the INE, the OPLES [state-level electoral organizations], and the state electoral tribunals via secondary laws, nor reduce public financing for regular activities of political parties, nor touch the composition of state legislatures or city councils [the proposed legislation reduces the funding and size the latter]. If they do, he threatened, the opposition will resort to the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation (SCJN).
The deputy of Morena, Hamlet Almaguer, said that the central points of the constitutional initiative can be transferred to secondary laws and there the votes of their legislators and allied factions are sufficient for passage [only a simple majority is required].
"With Plan B, we are going to insist on using secondary legislation. The transformation of the country is gradual and we are going to persist until a less expensive democracy is achieved," said the legislator.