The President will send a constitutional reform initiative to modify how the advisers of the National Electoral Institute (INE) and the magistrates of the Electoral Court of the Judicial Power of the Federation (TEPJF) are appointed. What AMLO has proposed is cheeky.
AMLO is proposing that all councilors and magistrates be elected by popular vote. But beware, not all citizens could be applicants. Each one of the three powers (Executive, Legislative and Judicial) would present a list of 20 candidates for counselors and 20 magistrates. Then the 60 candidates for the INE and the 60 for the TEPJN would be voted on in a national election.
The proposal for this integration of the lists is impudent. The 20 and 20 that the President would potentially propose would all be people close to the ruling party (Morena). As for the Legislative, if the two lists of councilors and magistrates were voted by an absolute majority, Morena and allies would include people identified with them. If it were approved by a qualified majority, there would be more opportunity for the opposition to include individuals close to these parties. In either case, the vast majority, if not all, would again be from the ruling party and allies.
One third of the lists of candidates corresponding to the Judiciary would remain. Perhaps there we would find a greater presence of more independent people because this Power is the least controlled by the parties.
Thus, in the best of cases, two-thirds of the people who would be on the ballot for consideration by the electorate would be candidates close to Morena and her allies. In this sense, the first nerve is the bias of the lists.
Then these characters would be voted on by the population. It sounds very democratic. It is not.
What would the campaigns of 60 candidates for councilors and 60 for magistrates be like? Would they give them radio and television spots? Would they give them public money? Could you collect private? You don’t have to be a genius to foresee that the best campaigns would be those of individuals tacitly or explicitly supported by the parties that know how to campaign.
In addition, the parties are the ones that have the capacity to mobilize the electorate. It is his daily work. In this sense, those who would obtain the most votes would be those who made a pact with parties. And Morena would be the one with the most councilors and magistrates because today it is the one with the most resources for campaigns and electoral mobilization. It’s another cheek. Shamelessly, they want to control the two autonomous bodies that organize, regulate and certify the elections.
The President and his supporters — including the Secretary of the Interior, Adán Augusto López, who this weekend began his campaign to be Morena’s presidential candidate — want to sell it to us as a democratic breakthrough. It is not like this. It is an institutional engineering to seize the INE and the TEPJF. a cheek.
That they do not come to tell us that they want to elect councilors and magistrates in this way because they are very democratic. They are actually hypocrites. When it comes to choosing their candidates for popular election positions, Morena uses polls, not primary elections. This is how they have designated all their candidates for governor and they will do so with their presidential candidate in 2024. If they really were Democrats, why don’t they let people vote to elect Morena’s candidates?
Impudently, the President and his party intend to modify the rules of the game to tip the field in favor of Morena in 2024. They show that they are afraid of losing. They are not convinced that, with the current institutions, they can ensure continuity to the 4T.
Since the 1990s, all the electoral reforms that have been carried out have been the result of a negotiation between the ruling party and the opposition. In particular, the proposals of the latter were approved to give them guarantees of a balanced game. However, on this occasion, the government will send its reform initiative without negotiating it with the opposition. Of that size is his arrogance. They only think of themselves. They only fit. Another cheek.
To approve this proposal, the Constitution must be reformed. The support of the opposition is required since Morena and her allies do not have enough votes to do so. Only an idiotic or corrupt opponent could accept the proposal to elect councilors and magistrates by popular vote from a list biased in favor of Morena. It would be doing harakiri for his interests. But, in today’s Mexico, one no longer knows how some opponents are playing, especially those from the PRI who are always flirting with the government and its party.
#nerve