Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s electoral reform is attracting everyone’s attention in Mexico. There is no other topic more divisive or controversial. The president’s proposed package of changes, which went into effect this week, cuts powers and cuts much of the operational structure of the National Electoral Institute (INE), the body responsible for organizing voting. The president’s supporters claim that burying a “golden bureaucracy” and founding a “real democracy” after decades of simulation is succinct progress. Circles critical of power assert that the new measures are a setback and endanger the fragile democracy of the Latin American country. Some even accuse the arrival of a “dictatorship,” while the other side accuse them of “traitors” and “corruption.” Both sides took to the streets to flex their muscles in recent weeks, packing Mexico City’s Zócalo, Mexico’s most famous square. At stake are the rules of the game for the 2024 presidential election, but also the forces competing for the next government. All in an environment of increasing polarization. Without halves or room for dialogue.
The dance of polarization
Last weekend’s rejection of electoral reform sparked the largest opposition mobilization in the five years since López Obrador came to power. The demonstration produced a heterogeneous mosaic. There were citizens worried about the democratic health of the country, historical figures fighting for political change, and moderate academics demanding counterbalances to presidential hegemony. But there were also stubborn critics who feared they were ” becoming Venezuela or Cuba,” some old caciques who suddenly emerged as defenders of democracy, and many leaders of an opposition in crisis who saw a unique opportunity to capitalize on the discontent to beat and gain support in the race for the presidency.
López Obrador lumped everyone together, dismissing the protests as his rivals’ desperate attempt to delegitimize him. “They don’t care about democracy,” he stated at one of his morning press conferences this week. The President resisted criticism and cracked down on those who called for the demonstration, calling them hypocrites, neoliberals and drug traffickers. “Fake”, “white-collar criminal”, “cynical” he said on Monday after he had drawn up a list of the best-known demonstrators and projected their photos onto screens. On Tuesday, López Obrador complained about media coverage of the “march of the corrupt” by international media and “other mercenaries in the media.” “It is a mark of pride for us to face these people with this backward, authoritarian and handsome mentality,” he said on Wednesday. “We have the most expensive elections in the world,” he said on Thursday. “They are really very imbeciles,” he said of his opponents on Friday.
López Obrador, in his press conference the day after the opposition march, presented a list of those convened, including congressmen, businessmen and intellectuals Sáshenka Gutiérrez (EFE)
As in Spain and many other countries, the coordinates of the current political debate revolve around big black boxes like populism, disinformation campaigns and the promotion of issues like gender equality and defense of minority rights. The peculiarity of Mexico is that the opposition is headless. It has no clear leadership to rival Morena, the movement and political party in power. The opposite is a ubiquitous president in all public affairs and with broad popular support, particularly among bases that feel perpetually marginalized by those in power, the architects of the “old regime”. Approval for López Obrador is over 60% in the polls.
Because of this, López Obrador is often the first to divide the board between good and evil, heroes and traitors. During his tenure, the executive has established itself as the only one that sets the pace and tone of political discussions in the country: all debates revolve around him and are discussed on his terms. “In this polarization, the president has everything to gain because he has resources that no one else has,” says Salvador Camarena, a columnist for the newspaper. Camarena reiterates that instead of answering the questions with arguments, López Obrador uses state resources such as public television to amplify his message and launch excessive, personalized and unfounded attacks. “The president overwhelms and thus reduces the possibility that multiple voices will be heard, let alone critics, with different opinions on the big issues in Mexico,” he adds.
But it takes two to dance. Enrique Gutiérrez, an academic at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, points out that alongside all the legitimate claims, disinformation and manipulation converged at last Sunday’s march, encouraged by characters trying to exploit discontent and real concerns. . “Sometimes it seemed more like a march against the president than for INE,” says the political scientist. “Many of these actors have given up being a serious and responsible opposition with an alternative political project, preferring to be associated with this speech against the President,” he adds.
A man during the March in Defense of the INE in Guadalajara (Jalisco) on February 26. Francisco Guasco (EFE)
All of this is happening just over a year before the election, while Morena and her allies control 22 of the 32 states. In addition to the presidium, nine governorships, the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies are disputed in 2024. The Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) sinks into the worst crisis in its history and is mortally wounded by several corruption scandals. The Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) is fighting for its registration. The National Action Party (PAN), the main opposition force, is still digesting the coup of the verdict against Genaro García Luna, security minister in the government of Felipe Calderón (2006-2012), for drug trafficking and organized crime in the United States. “It’s an orphaned opposition, with no projects and no numbers,” says Gutiérrez.
Plan B
“Plan B” is short for electoral reform. Since the second half of last year, López Obrador has been pushing for a constitutional reform of the INE that would require a two-thirds majority in both chambers. The opposition formed a bloc in Congress and struck down the project last December. In the face of a lack of consensus, the President has resigned himself to taking an alternative route to only amending secondary legislation, for which he only needs a simple majority, which he has relied on.
Anchored in the President’s popularity, the reform has majority support. According to an Enkoll poll for EL PAÍS, published last November, two out of three people support a change. Regardless of technical issues and debates, the argument of many is simple: It is a sign that the government is “doing its job” and “that something is being done to improve what is already there,” said Heidi Osuna, the director of the polling institute.
Roberto Heycher will be sworn in as the new Executive Secretary of INE this Friday before Lorenzo Córdova, the organisation’s President.RAQUEL CUNHA (Portal)
The motivations are for political and personal reasons. López Obrador’s animosity towards the election umpire dates back almost two decades. The President blamed INE for his defeat in the 2006 elections by Calderón for alleged “electoral fraud” and asserted that he had been harmed by the Institute’s decisions. Since taking office in December 2018, López Obrador has pushed through an austerity discourse, despite criticism that the operation of various areas of public administration is at risk. In the case of the election umpire, the executive has ordered budget cuts every year, targeting the body’s president, Lorenzo Córdova, who will end his term next April. “I have nothing to say to the president,” Córdova told the media this week, refusing to engage in a “bickering” confrontation.
The cuts in the new reform mean a saving of 5,000 million pesos (about 260 million euros) by 2023, according to executive calculations. But its critics say that cheap will be expensive. “It’s a setback because it structurally weakens INE under the pretense that it saves money, which by the way isn’t clear,” says María Marván, a former council member of the organization. “It’s a deeply destructive law,” he adds.
The INE warns that fewer resources will hamper basic tasks needed to make elections certain, such as controlling political parties, calculating rapid vote counting and training citizens to be electoral officials. Eight out of ten jobs in the careers guidance service and 300 district boards responsible for preparing and organizing elections will be eliminated. And the election calendar is also being shortened: there is less time for internal candidate selection processes and for challenges and controversies between political forces.
“It’s a mainly administrative change that raises a lot of questions about how the INE will work, but it has nothing to do with the arrival of a dictatorship,” says Gutiérrez. The political scientist emphasizes a few points, such as guaranteeing the right to vote for the population in prison or the start of testing electronic voting.
Items used by the protesters, dumped in a rubbish bin after the March 26th. Rodrigo Oropeza
fireproof
The debate on electoral reform goes through the past and future of democracy in the country. The Guarantor of Mexico’s elections is the product of decades of political and social struggles. Previously, the government itself was responsible for organizing the elections, allowing the PRI, the state party of the 20th century, to rule uninterruptedly for more than 70 years. Marván warns of the risk of opening the door again to the executive to hold votes. For example, the Foreign Office is responsible for maintaining the register of Mexicans living abroad, but also for counting the votes, says the former adviser on the changes in the reform.
“Democracy was a conquest, we weren’t used to it and that’s why it’s valued,” says Marván. Fear of the ghosts of the past has resurfaced in many industries. The idea of a weakened referee is traumatic for many citizens who campaigned for the slogan “The INE does not move”.
In fact, the INE has been touched on many times. Almost all presidents of the “democratic era” sought changes in the way public offices are elected. The last electoral reform was a constitutional change in 2014, part of the consensus formed by the PRI, PRD and PAN in the so-called Pact for Mexico. So Morena did not exist as a political party and it is an argument of many that valid regulation is needed.
Panoramic view of the capital’s Zocalo during the concentration in favor of the INE on February 26th. Rodrigo Oropeza
However, Marván assures that this time is different. Because no consensus was sought among the political forces. Because a president has never adopted López Obrador’s tone against the body or against the judiciary, which will be in charge of resolving various issues that may be unconstitutional. Because the historical trend is for the opposition to seek fairer competition rules, not for the majority bloc to impose itself to shut the door on its rivals. “The last electoral law reform that was carried out in favor of those in power was in 1946, the setback is so great,” says the lawyer.
The tension surrounding “Plan B”, which is clouding discussions about adjustments in the political system that cannot be postponed, occurs in the middle of the race for the longest succession in Mexico’s recent history: two years before the nomination at the ballot box, four high-profile politicians from Morena know the want presidential chair. Some opposition politicians, who are far behind in the polls, have also raised their hands. Ultimately, the 2024 election will be the litmus test of the reform’s impact if it survives the judicial scrutiny. It will be the first count of the damage of anything Mexico lost or gained in the elections.
Subscribe here to the EL PAÍS México newsletter and receive all the important information about current events in this country