( Spanish) — Mexico’s electoral reform proposed in April by President Andrés Manuel López Obrador seeks to lower the costs of the Mexican political system, but the initiative has several controversial points that legislators are debating in Congress.
The proposal It seeks an estimated saving of some US$ 1,200 million (24,000 million Mexican pesos) by proposing adjustments in the electoral and legislative bureaucracy, as well as a decrease in the budget of political parties.
Less than two years before the 2024 presidential election, López Obrador says that this initiative responds to the demand of citizens for an austerity policy and to create electoral bodies that guarantee legitimate elections, without the possibility of fraud.
The president’s initiative proposes modifications in 18 constitutional articles and seven transitory articles, among which the disappearance of the National Electoral Institute (INE), the body in charge of organizing elections in Mexico, and replacing it with the so-called National Institute of Elections and Consultations (INE). INEC).
The new electoral body would have seven councilors instead of the 11 that the INE currently has. In addition, it proposes that they be elected by popular vote, like the magistrates that make up the Electoral Tribunal of the Judicial Power.
With the creation of the INEC, the state electoral institutes would also disappear and the new body would be in charge of organizing federal, state and municipal elections.
The adjustments to the electoral bodies are due, according to the initiative, to the fact that both the INE and the Electoral Tribunal “were integrated by partisan quotas and co-opted by power groups, to the detriment of their impartiality in favor of democracy.”
Opposition parties discuss controversial points
The disappearance of the INE and the reduction of the electoral bureaucracy that requires constitutional changes are some of the points that have caused the most controversy and disagreement among the political parties and groups opposed to the president.
This Tuesday a working group was installed made up of deputies representing all the political parties and that will be in charge of analyzing more than 100 initiatives on electoral reform, including that of the president.
The opposition bloc Va por México — made up of the National Action (PAN), Institutional Revolutionary (PRI) and Democratic Revolution (PRD) parties — agreed to review the initiatives, although they said they did not agree with some of the proposals.
The coordinator of the PRD in the Chamber of Deputies, Luis Ángel Espinoza Cházaro, said that the institutional scaffolding of Mexico is solid.
“It requires improvements in secondary laws, but from our point of view it is not necessary now, facing an election for the presidency in 2024, to modify the constitutional framework,” said the PRD.
Rubén Moreira, PRI deputy, added that this party does not anticipate its vote in favor of any reform.
“We are not going to allow the INE or the Federal Electoral Tribunal to be damaged, and this is understood in their autonomy, in their certainty, in their transparency and in all the conditions that make their work possible,” Moreira assured.
The Movimiento Ciudadano party is the only one that has so far shown its total rejection of this initiative. His representative at the work table, Salvador Caro, left the meeting after stating that “what they are doing is giving the president the conditions to put in his puppet. Movimiento Ciudadano wants to inform in front of all of you and in front of the Mexicans that it is not going to participate in this farce.”
The reduction of legislators and the financing of parties
The Mexican president also proposes to reduce the number of legislators. In the case of the Senate, the decrease would be from 128 senators to 96. In the case of the Chamber of Deputies, the figure is proposed to go from 500 to 300.
At the same time, the figure of legislators elected by proportional representation or plurinominals disappeared, that is, positions that are distributed based on the percentage of votes obtained by each political party, leaving only those who campaigned and were elected by the citizens in the polls.
An adjustment is also proposed for local congresses. The initiative proposes that there be a minimum of 15 deputies and a maximum of 45.
In the town halls there would be a limit of up to nine aldermen in proportion to the population of each municipality.
According to López Obrador, the population demands elections and austere political parties, which is why his initiative contemplates limiting the financing of political institutes “only for electoral campaign expenses” and suppressing the more than US$550 million (11,000 million pesos) of the so-called ordinary financing that is given to them each year, as established in the initiative.
The document adds that the elimination of the budget in non-electoral years would represent a saving of more than 66% of current spending.
Financing for ordinary activities of political parties reached more than US$277 million (5,500 million pesos) last year.
Morena, the party that the president founded, He received more than US$ 85 million (1,700 million pesos), while the PAN and the PRI a little more than US$ 50 million (1,000 million pesos) each.
The president also proposed raising the guarantee of the use of information and communication technologies for voting to constitutional status.
