The front pages of national newspapers last Thursday announced the approval of Plan B by the Senate. The Executive’s threat, announced one day after the citizen’s march in defense of the INE, was fulfilled. The most emblematic bastion and surely the best understood by Mexicans, suffered a setback that if it was not deadly, was just as tragic.
Plan B cuts the political aspect of the electoral reform and with it its most cunning proposal of having a legislative power with only multi-member representatives and senators; that is, chosen by the parties and not by the population. However, plan B retains the administrative aspect of the electoral reform, which is why it requires fewer votes to be approved as it happened. The danger of plan B lies in the de-professionalization of the INE.
Looking back, the need for an impartial electoral referee accelerated after the incredible “system crash” in the 1988 presidential vote. Until then, the head of the Ministry of the Interior was responsible for conducting presidential elections and congress every three years. It was all done with volunteers and staff who were paid per event. There was no specific structure to take care of the form and substance of the electoral campaigns. Devoid of the continuity required by ex officio personnel, it was never possible to form a sense of roots for an innocuous and disposable electoral process.
The importance of the INE is to have professionalized the electoral profession. Mexico lacked the notion that a public servant could make a career in the electoral arena; as there is in the foreign service and in the judicial system. The INE infrastructure grew with officials who knew that their daily work was an appointment with history and greatness. Thus, with the shirt well on, the winner of all the elections from 1994 to date has been the INE. For making the alternation or continuity in the most democratic process of our nation transparent.
Fortunately, last Friday it was published that Plan B would be without effect until the conflict of a clause that allows the transfer of votes is reconciled. Without this possibility, the party that does not achieve a minimum of 3% of the vote ceases to exist. By canceling the transfer clause, the chiquillada as the PVEM and PT will cease to be the faithful of the scale.
Yesterday, Saturday, the front pages of the national newspapers announced that it will be until February when the session resumes that the subject of Plan B will be touched upon again.
Dear reader,
The anger against the INE will not end here…. It will end there, with you. Although the march for the INE removed the political issues from the electoral reform, what will we have to do to remove the administrative issue?
grab viada
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