As expected, the parliamentary bloc formed by Morena, PT and PVEM has approved in the Chamber of Deputies the reform to the Judicial Branch, which will submit to a popular vote the election of all judges, including the ministers of the Supreme Court of Justice. The ruling party started the steamroller without any setbacks thanks to the fact that in San Lázaro it has more than enough qualified majority – two thirds of the plenary – required to make amendments to the Constitution. To complete the process, the Senate of the Republic must ratify the reform bill that the lower house sent it this Wednesday. That is where a thorn appears in the side of the Government. In the Senate, the Morena-PT-PVEM bloc has 85 seats and is one short of completing the qualified majority and being able to ratify the amendment. The question these days has been which of the opposition benches will get the missing vote. The operation can also be reversed. If one of the PAN, PRI or MC senators is absent, the ratification will be consummated.
The Chamber of Deputies discussed and voted on the amendment between Tuesday and Wednesday, in a 17-hour uninterrupted session. An hour after concluding, the bill had been sent to the Senate. The president of the Board of Directors of the Upper House, the PT member Gerardo Fernández Noroña, immediately referred the project to the Legislative Studies and Constitutional Points commissions. Both commissions are headed, respectively, by Citlalli Hernández and Ernestina Godoy, loyal collaborators of Claudia Sheinbaum, the president-elect; in her Administration, the first will assume the Secretariat of Women and the second, the Legal Counsel of the presidency. In addition, the official bloc has the majority in both legislative bodies, so it will be able to approve the bill of judicial reform with ease.
The working meeting to rule on the project in committees will be on Sunday at 1:00 p.m. On Tuesday, the “first reading” will be given (it will be communicated to the Senate in general), and on Wednesday there will be a plenary session where it will be discussed and voted on. The senators have taken precautions after the experience of their fellow deputies on Tuesday, who were unable to hold a session in the official headquarters of Congress, because it was occupied by employees of the Judicial Branch. The legislators met on a sports field. The Board of Directors of the Senate has agreed, among the representatives of all the parties, that an alternative location will be sought “in case circumstances of force majeure or fortuitous event arise that make work impossible.” The possible alternative locations will be in Mexico City. Three are being considered: the former headquarters of the Senate in Xicoténcatl, the Banamex Center and Expo Santa Fe.
Several opposition senators criticized the speed with which Morena and its allies are seeking to process the judicial reform, once they received the minutes from San Lázaro. “Let’s do the due process, we know who is in favor of this proposal as it is and who is against it; let’s have a high-level parliamentary debate,” Mayuli Martínez, of the PAN, has requested. Ernestina Godoy has assured that the regulatory steps and times have been followed to process the minutes. “I regret that the practice has been to wait many days; we are just starting [la legislatura] and we have been working since day one; we are going to do it without pauses, quickly, because the people of Mexico have already waited a long time,” he said. Fernández Noroña added that “there is no power on Earth that can stop” the legislative process to implement the amendment.
Beyond the speed with which the process will proceed in the coming days, the big question hanging over the Senate is how Morena will manage to obtain a qualified majority. In the June elections, the majority bloc reached 83 seats. However, last week, the two legislators who had managed to reach the Senate through the dwindling PRD, José Sabino Herrera and Araceli Saucedo, broke with their party and joined the ruling party, which now has 85 seats. It was clear that the party in government was on the hunt for the votes necessary to form a large majority and that its operators — Senator Adán Augusto López at the head — were committed to fulfilling the task. “Just as a clarification,” said Marko Cortés, senator and leader of the PAN, this Wednesday, “the people of Mexico did not grant them a qualified majority in the Senate of the Republic, they are acquiring it, we will have to see how, but it was not granted to them with the votes of the people.”
Following the escape of the PRD members, a “betrayal” according to the opposition, all eyes are on the PAN, the PRI and MC. The coordinator of the PAN faction, Guadalupe Murguía, has asked her party to close ranks and has called on the other groups to seek internal unity. Rumors have centered around some specific senators, such as the PRI member Cinthya López Castro, who began to be speculated about because she posted a photo on her social networks with Luisa María Alcalde, Secretary of the Interior and future leader of Morena. This Wednesday, the legislator came out to contain the speculation. “I am undoubtedly against this reform to the Judicial Branch,” she said in a video.
Suspicions then pointed to another PRI senator, Miguel Riquelme. The former governor of Coahuila —one of the last bastions of the PRI— has been hospitalized due to a health complication. There were those who doubted that it was true and warned of the possibility that it was an excuse not to go to vote, which would give help to the ruling party (the qualified majority of two thirds is calculated based on the number of senators present at the session). The PRI has gone so far as to release a video recorded from a hospital room, in which the former governor, convalescing, gives a detailed explanation of his state of health. “I would like to make it clear that my vote will be against the reform of the Judicial Branch, that I am doing everything possible to attend the session,” said the PRI member.
Other opposition senators have begun motu proprio to make public that the direction of their vote will be against the amendment. Noroña has hinted this Wednesday that the official block already has the necessary support to ratify it. “The qualified majority has been built,” he said. Augusto López has pointed out that 85 legislators may be enough to approve constitutional reforms, depending on how the figure that results from extracting two thirds of 128 legislators that make up the Senate is interpreted: 85.33. For the most formalists, the figure should be adjusted to 85; for the most realistic, since one cannot have the 0.33 of a senator, the figure should be raised to the next integer, 86. The players’ cards remain face down. Everything indicates that they will not be shown until Wednesday.
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