Surprise! Last week we learned that the INE requested the technical opinion of the Venice Commission on electoral reform proposals discussed in the Chamber of Deputies. The request was made with the utmost secrecy Since last June 28, Doctor Lorenzo Córdova in his capacity as Chairman of the INE and made public domain last Tuesday, informally, with a tweet from the counselor Cyrus Murayama when the issue was already scheduled to be addressed by said commission at the meeting held on October 21 and 22.
The representation of Morena before the INE requested an urgent explanation of this request and Córdova’s response was that the initiatives of electoral reform discussed in the legislature require to be analyzed under international standards in light of best practices in electoral matters (jornada.com.mx). The truth is that the only supporting document for this opinion that was published on the Commission’s official Internet site is an English version of the initiative sent by López Obrador.
The Venice Commission is a body of the European Council which is made up of experts in constitutional law, democracy, justice and electoral administration. It was created in 1990 to offer legal advice and technical support to European States that were in democratic transition; Since then, non-European countries have joined this Commission, including Mexico (since 1999).
The way this Commission operates is as follows: as a general rule, the national authorities that require it send the bills to the Commission so that they can be evaluated by its group of experts before their approval, in order to receive advice during the elaboration phase. This is not exactly the Mexican case, because if it were so, it would have been the Chamber of Deputies, and not the INE, that requested the opinion of the Commission. It is a kind of forced arbitration, in which the Deputies are not obliged to adopt the recommendations
In any case, it is not the first time that the electoral body requests the opinion of the Commission. In December 2011, when we Mexicans had been finding Enrique Peña Nieto even in the soup for more than a year, Leonardo Valdez Zurita, then President of the IFE, requested the Commission’s opinion on the electoral legislation in force in Mexico, with emphasis on three themes: 1) media access, two) control of the resources disbursed by the political parties and 3) administrative complaints and sanctions for electoral infractions. The campaigns had not started, but the electoral process that would bring the PRI back to the presidency was already underway, so it was agreed that the Commission would issue its opinion until December 2012.
Thus, a delegation from the Commission visited Mexico in November of that year to meet with the president of the Political Coordination Board, legislators from the PRI, PAN and PRD in both chambers, magistracies of the Electoral Tribunal, departments of the IFE and representatives of the main polling houses, as well as the most important media companies, after which the Commission issued opinion CDL-AD(2013)021, whose recommendations include the following: simplify electoral legislation, regulate the right of reply, favor plurality of communication media, reinforce the effectiveness of measures against vote buying, consider parliamentary re-election, establish clear parameters for the control of political parties, clearly define the scope of the prohibition of early campaign events, promote participation electoral rights of minorities, reform the percentages required for nullity in the elections of senates and councils, consider the possibility of invalidating the presidential election for substantial violations during voting day and, lastly, reconsider the prohibition of denigrating political parties and candidates, as it can lead to censorship of positions critics who are the essence of democratic debate.
Some of these observations would be introduced in the electoral reform of 2014, however, our electoral legislation is even more baroque than it was ten years ago, no effective measures have been established to inhibit vote buying and coercion, it is still an impossible mission to regulate the flow of cash in political campaigns, we have not put an end to the deceptive use of government advertising, nor are early campaign events effectively regulated. Although the most serious of all, is the threat that hangs over the federal and local electoral administrative authorities, which the government’s reform initiative intends to eliminate. That is why Lorenzo Córdova’s movement requesting the intervention of the Venice Commission. Castle and check the King.
The opinion of the Commission, which will be made public today, will focus on issues related to electoral administration. We will analyze it carefully.
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The 2020 public account of the Electoral Institute of the State of Sinaloa (IEES) was unanimously approved. The Superior State Audit reviewed 70 items, of which the IEES complied with the regulations in 63, in 4 observations were made that the Institute was able to solve, so the final report that the State Congress voted and approved on Thursday , collects only three items with observation, two of them that correspond to an incorrect accounting application and only one that causes property damage for $8,679, an amount that corresponds to surcharges that were paid with public resources. A recognition goes to IEES for the proper exercise of financial discipline and the commitment to transparency and austerity in the management of resources that belong to everyone.
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