Reforma, Mexico City, December 1, 2022
By Claudia Salazar, Martha Martinez and Francisco Ortiz
Morena's allies in Congress admitted yesterday that the constitutional reform in electoral matters "is not going to happen", and they announced a plan for a process of "agreements" to achieve the proposed changes in 2023 via "secondary" laws [laws derived from constitutional statutes that establish the details for the implementation of those statutes].
MV Note: Unlike the U.S. Constitution, which only primarily defines the three-part structure of the national government and defines the powers of each branch, the Mexican Constitution contains the foundational laws for virtually every dimension and aspect of the government´s structure and function. Therefore, constitutional "reforms" are required for virtually every significant change in government structure and function.
PT [Workers Party deputy] Gerardo Fernández Noroña, a key figure in the electoral negotiations, told REFORMA,
"It is evident that the (constitutional) reform is not going to pass because we do not have the two thirds vote" required. "Now, we are moving to a process of building agreements for reforms to the secondary laws, where the Opposition could join us. If they don't want to, we don't need them, because there is a basic agreement between Morena, PT and PVEM [Mexican Green Party]."
MV Note: While Morena, the Workers Party and the Green Party are publically presenting a united front regarding the electoral legislation, actually there have been significant objections by the two small parties to parts of the electoral changes proposed by the president, Andrés Manuel López Óbrador [aka AMLO]. One of the proposed changes is that elections will be transformed from individual candidates competing for each office to each party creating a list of candidates for all offices in each state and voters only having one vote, for the list of one party.
This is seen by the two small parties as threatening the reduction, if not possibly the elimination of their representation in Congress. This would eliminate their role and, thus, their power as being needed by Morena [the Movment for National Regeneration, founded by AMLO in 2014] to provide majorities in Congress.
It also threatens their financing by the government, which depends on the percentage of the vote they achieve in each election. Most seriously, it threatens their very existence, as parties are required to recieve a minimum percentage of the vote to remain registered with the government as official parties eligible for funding and for competing in elections.
Given the statement by the Workers Party deputy, evidently these diffrences are being negotiated with Morena and an agreement is being worked out, but where that process stands has not been made public and no changes to the legislation to address their concerns have been announced.
The "Oppositon" consists of a more or less united front calling itself Va por Mexico, Go for Mexico, formed for the 2018 presidential and congressional election by the PRI [politically opportunistic Party of the Institutional Revolution, which held a hegemony of government power at all levels from the 1930s to the 1990s], the PAN [conservative National Action Party, which broke the hegemony of the PRI and held the presidency for two terms, from 2000 to 2012] and the PRD [Party of the Democratic Revolution]
The PRD arose from an unstable coalition of various leftist groups brought together in 1988 to back the presidential candidacy of Cauhtémoc Cárdenas, son of leftist President Lázaro Cárdenas [held office 1934 to 1940]. Cárdenas, a famous and convinced leftist, had left the PRI over its adoption of neoliberal capitalist economics for Mexico, replacing its state-ownership of much of the economic structure and opening the country to foreign companies and investors. Cárdenas lost by a narrow margin after a reputed "crash" of the electoral computers, so the election was widely viewed by Mexicans as a fraud. However, the PRD has never held national governmental power.
President Andrés Manuel López Óbrador [aka AMLO] was the PRD's presidential candidate in 2006 and 2012. He lost by less than 1% of the vote in 2006 and charged fraud. The charges were not upheld by the Electoral Institute or Electoral Tribunal [court]. This is seen by some critics as the reasons for his proposed changes to weaken these institutions. After his loss in 2012, he left the PRD in anger for what he claimed was its lack of support. Morena, originally a grassroots, activist organization that AMLO had personally created, provided most of his actual campaign support structure and personnel.
In 2014, AMLO succeeded in getting Morena qualified for designation by the government as an official political party, thus gaining government funding and the right to compete in elections. In 2018, quite remarkably, it won the presidency by an absolute majority of all votes [53%], something never before achieved since three parties began competing in 2000. It also won a two-thirds super-majority in both chambers of Congress, giving it the power to make changes in the Constitution and, thus, in the laws underlying every part of the Mexican government. It also won a majority of governorships and state legislatures. With all this political power, in one fell swoop, it virtually obliterated the power of all three traditional major parties.
However, in the mid-term elections of 2021, Morena achieved only a simple majority in the Chamber of Deputies, the lower house of Congress; hence its present political weakness in being able to unable pass any Constitutional amendments without the support of some members of opposition parties. This gave a significant piece of political power back to the opposition. In this case, it has succeeded in stopping constitutional "reforms" to the structure and functions of the electoral system currently run by the National Electoral Institute (INE).
The coordinator of the Morena deputies [in the Chamber of Deputies], Ignacio Mier, declared that the deadline to make electoral changes will now be in April 2023, [formal presidential and congressional campaigns will start that autumn]. He said that this does not mean that the constitutional reform will not be discussed next week [the Congress ends this term in mid-December and does not reconvene until April].
From this point on, the focus of Morena's activity will be on the replacement of INE directors, which is scheduled to take place in April of next year, and on the reforms of secondary laws. That is, the discussion of the secondary laws will coincide with that of the renewal of the directors. Four of the [eleven] INE directors are up for reelection or replacement. Among them are Lorenzo Córdova [president of the council from 2014 to 2023] and Ciro Murayama, with both of whom Morena has had confrontations [MV Note: Ah, the plot thickens!].
The process for renewal of directors begins on December 13 with the call for nominations
MV Note: The Congress, the political parties and the voting public can make nominations. Congress then chooses the directors from the list of those nominated. This has, in effect, led to each party getting to name a portion of the eleven directors equal to its share of seats in Congress.
Hence, Morena will be able to name a majority of the council members, which it wants to reduce from eleven to seven, ostensibly as part of an economic motive to reduce the cost of the INE by reducing the size of its staff. López Óbrador has abruptly, drastically, and unsystematically reduced the size of much of the Mexican government bureaucracy in the name of saving money. He is using the saved money for subsidies to the poor and to unemployed and out-of-school youth [so-called Ninis], his political base.
Mier pointed out that the electoral reform initiative in secondary laws will include modifications to the operational structure of the INE, such as the merger of the Training and Organization directorates, which would generate savings of nearly three billion pesos [US $157 million].
The modifications in secondary laws are the so-called "Plan B" that AMLO has announced as an alternative to his electoral reform, given the impossibility of having two-thirds of the votes in the Chamber of Deputies for a constitutional change.
Fernández Noroña, vice coordinator of the PT in the Chamber of Deputies, denied having differences with Morena in regard to the constitutional reform because "it is a matter of governmental structure on which (they) agree" with President López Óbrador, but, he insisted, the only reason this option will not succeed is the lack of votes.
"It is evident that the (constitutional) reform is not going to happen because we do not have two thirds of the votes. The details of the reform are inconsequential [MV Note: Hum, the devil is in the details!] because it is a matter of government structure and we are companions of the President and on the side of Morena on this," he said.
The coordinator of the PVEM, Carlos Puente, also confirmed that the pro-government majority does not have the votes for a constitutional reform.
"We know that the votes (for the electoral reform) are not going to be enough. We have to review the proposal, and I hope that, between now and February, we can create adjustments for a clearer electoral model," he said.
So, Morena and its allied parties have given up as lost the electoral reform via constitutional changes. 'Plan B' will be developed during the winter of 2023 and presented in April [in the next session of Congress].