Washington supports opposition march in Mexico to defend electoral authority

Demonstrators in central Mexico City demonstrate against the electoral reform proposed by López Obrador.Isaac Esquivel (EFE).

“The United States supports independent, well-equipped electoral institutions.” With these ten words, the State Department entered the controversy surrounding the reform of Mexico’s electoral authority, the National Electoral Institute INE. Washington issued a statement a day after 100,000 Mexicans took to the streets in several cities to defend the organization’s autonomy in light of changes proposed by President Andrés Manuel López Obrador and his Morena party. “There have been challenges to democracy around the world that have tested and continue to test the strength of independent electoral and judicial institutions,” said Ned Price, foreign policy spokesman for the Joe Biden administration.

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In doing so, Washington pays tribute to the “intensive debate” taking place in Mexico between government and opposition supporters who saw defending electoral authority as the best opportunity to unite weakened and disparate groups. This discussion, according to the Americans, reflects “a dynamic democracy”. The State Department, headed by Antony Blinken, points out that an independent electoral authority and respect for the judiciary are essential for a healthy democracy. The opposition ensures that these are besieged by the Mexican president and morena politicians in the legislature. In turn, from within the ruling party, they linked the entity’s president, Lorenzo Córdova, to the opposition.

This is the second comment Washington has made regarding the opposition demonstration. “Today we are witnessing a major debate on electoral reforms that will test the independence of electoral and judicial institutions,” he wrote on Twitter in the late afternoon. Sunday Brian Nicholsthe assistant secretary for affairs in the western hemisphere, an area in which Mexico has great weight as one of the most important partners of the United States.

Today in Mexico we are witnessing a major debate on electoral reforms that will test the independence of electoral and judicial institutions. The US supports independent electoral institutions that have the resources to strengthen democratic processes and the rule of law.

— Brian A Nichols (@WHAAsstSecty) February 27, 2023

Although Washington has stated in its communiqués that it respects Mexico’s sovereignty, the issue has strained relations between some authorities in the two countries. Last week, Ignacio Mier, Morena leader in the Chamber of Deputies, asked Americans to keep his comments on the electoral reform his group promoted in the legislature last year, popularly known as Plan B.

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The legislative process for this reform was completed last week. Senators from Morena won a majority in the upper house to complete the transformation of INE, whose structure will be decimated despite being responsible for organizing thousands of elections in the country and helping the country’s 32 electoral institutions. Plan B also makes it more difficult to punish officials who interfere with campaigns. To ensure approval, the majority group, made up of Morena and his political partners, took off a clause that allowed the transfer of votes between the coalition parties. This destiny, called “eternal life”, has been postponed.

According to the New York Times, Morena’s Plan B set alarm bells ringing among American diplomats. The newspaper guarantees that the US embassy in Mexico has sent anxious messages to Washington about the electoral reform’s antecedents. However, the Biden administration is silent on the matter. Until this week’s news.

This morning, as expected, President López Obrador denounced the protesters at his daily conference. “They really don’t care about democracy, but they want the regime of an oligarchy to continue, that is, a government of the rich, the powerful; They don’t care about the people,” the president said.

Washington’s message not only reaffirms the role of the Electoral Commission, which has been independent of the executive since 1996, but also recalls the importance of judicial independence. The clash with the STF judges is proposed the new episode of the fight by López Obrador. It will be the constitutional judges who will have to analyze the constitutional claims that the opposition will invoke to stop Plan B of electoral reform.