The adoption of Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s electoral reform, known as “Plan B”, sparked mass protests and international warnings about a perceived threat to the country’s democracy.
These are some of the most controversial points of the reform promoted by López Obrador, which was approved in the Senate last Wednesday and for which hundreds of thousands of citizens in more than 100 cities protested this Sunday to ask the Federal Supreme Court to declare it invalid. .
The first constitutional reform project, presented last April by López Obrador, was the most controversial.
I wanted to change 18 articles of the Constitution and represented the most transcendental transformation of Mexico’s elections in over 30 years.
One of the most controversial points was the establishment of the National Elections and Consultation Institute (INEC) to replace the National Elections Institute (INE), an autonomous body that came into being in 1990 as the Federal Elections Institute (IFE) and prompted the government to withdraw the the elections.
When the first plan reached Congress last December, it foundered after failing to pass the two-thirds mark needed for constitutional reform.
But now a second proposal from the Movimento Nacional de Regeneração (Morena) party, known as “Plan B”, has been approved and requires only a simple majority as it reforms six secondary laws.
After almost two months in the Senate, the initiative was approved with adjustments last Wednesday.
Economy versus electoral structure
One of the most significant changes is the 80% salary cut for the electoral body, whose functions are being consolidated, which will pose a challenge for the 2024 presidential election, analysts interviewed by EFE said.
While INE is not disappearing, its electoral structure is shrinking, explains Luis Miguel Carriedo, an expert in electoral communications and a professor at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM).
On the other hand, Francisco Burgoa, lawyer and professor of constitutional law at UNAM, doubts that these changes will be implemented a little more than a year before the presidential election, when historically “electoral laws are usually made in the first three years of presidential elections. term of six years”. .”.
While the reforms will not apply to this year’s state elections in Coahuila and the state of Mexico, they will apply to next year’s presidential elections, which will begin formal proceedings in June this year.
disputed clauses
One of the most controversial points the Senate revised was the so-called “eternal life clause”, which meant that parties could keep their registration if they did not get the required 3% preference, allowing the transfer of votes between parties . the same coalition.
It was eventually omitted, but it divided the alliance of pro-government parties, with even the president warning he would veto any inclusion of the law.
However, according to Carriedo, another of the most contentious clauses known as “Salgado Macedonio” was approved.
It is named after former Morena candidate Félix Salgado Macedonio, who was denied the Guerrero candidacy in 2018 for failing to submit his pre-campaign legal spending reports.
At the same time, the politician faced several public allegations of sexual assault.
“Now Plan B contains a measure that says that no one can be barred from running for public office, except in the cases provided for in Article 38 of the Constitution, which means that only those facing criminal charges can be disqualified” , he explains.
A step back from equality
They also point to changes in affirmative action to ensure representation of minority groups and with regard to gender equality, a constitutional principle of public bodies that must consist of an equal number of men and women.
The organization Aúna, which fights for the political representation of women in Mexico, believes that Plan B “will have a direct impact on women who want to hold public office”.
The platform’s co-founder, Mónica Tapia, told EFE that parity in implementation is now in the hands of the parties, as it was a few years ago, “without the guarantees of verification and compliance that INE has given”.
On the other hand, he pointed out that “affirmative actions that force Indigenous, young, African-American, sexually diverse, or disabled women to run also reduce the number of candidacies.”
Many of these issues have already been challenged in the STF, which must be resolved in record time before the start of the election process.
Source: La Neta Neta
Karen Clayton is a seasoned journalist and author at The Nation Update, with a focus on world news and current events. She has a background in international relations, which gives her a deep understanding of the political, economic and social factors that shape the global landscape. She writes about a wide range of topics, including conflicts, political upheavals, and economic trends, as well as humanitarian crisis and human rights issues.
