Mexico City.- The National Action Party (PAN) rejected the Secretary of the Interior, Luisa María Alcalde, for pressuring for the allocation of seats in the Chamber of Deputies and defending the overrepresentation of Morena.
The mayor participated in the morning press conference of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador and stated that the opposition does not want Morena to have a qualified majority in San Lázaro to approve the reform to the Judicial Branch.
“In response to pressure from the Government, through the Ministry of the Interior, to induce the establishment of legislative overrepresentation, we want to express our strong rejection, since the National Electoral Institute (INE) is the only authority empowered to determine the allocation,” warned Marko Cortés, leader of the PAN.
“(This) claim violates democratic principles and equity in political representation. We believe that legislative overrepresentation violates the fundamental principle of proportionality in the allocation of spaces, by granting an excessive number of representatives to certain political parties to the detriment of others.”
The Morena coalition won 54 percent of the votes of Mexicans, but, the leader said, it is absolutely unconstitutional and a mockery of the popular vote that they want to be assigned 75 percent of the seats in the Chamber of Deputies.
From the PAN’s perspective, Morena cheated by sending candidates from other political parties and there is an effective affiliation agreement in which the INE must accommodate the deputies in the party to which they belong.
“The government’s interpretation,” Cortés argued, “goes against the principles of equality and electoral justice, by favoring certain political parties to the detriment of others, without respecting the popular vote. The Constitution must be interpreted as a whole and in accordance with the historical moment that the country is experiencing. The spirit of the integration of proportional representation was to grant minorities representation in Congress; it has never been to grant greater artificial representation to the ruling party.
“It is essential that all political forces have the same opportunities for representation and that the popular will expressed at the polls is respected. Legislative overrepresentation can also generate a disproportionate concentration of power in the hands of Morena and the Government, which puts the separation of powers and the Government’s capacity for oversight and control at risk.”
Cortés called on the federal government to stop applying media and political pressure in order to unduly induce legislative overrepresentation.
“Finally, it will be up to the Electoral Court to review the allocation made by the INE. We hope that both councilors and magistrates will uphold the spirit of the Constituent Assembly that gives validity to the separation of powers, the representation of minorities and the plurality of our country,” he said.
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