Morena approves the electoral reform in the Senate despite the Monreal rebellion

The Senate of the Republic corrected the plan to the Chamber of Deputies regarding "plan B" of the electoral reform promoted by President Andrés Manuel López Obrador.

The Upper House eliminated from the opinion several changes approved by San Lázaro that benefited the parties allied to Morena and that implied an alteration to the original project sent by the National Palace.

The modifications provoked the annoyance of López Obrador, who asked his party to back down.

The new minutes approved by the Senate tonight will be returned to the Chamber of Deputies.

Morena, who also has a majority there, will seek to meet this Thursday to comply with the modifications of the Upper House before the end of the regular session, this same December 15.

ever an oiled

legislative, the pro-government majority struggled to gather the majority vote in the Senate because the coordinator of Morena, Ricardo Monreal, who has been uncertain for weeks about his permanence in the president's party, voted against the government plan with the argument that several articles violate the Constitution.

With the votes of his allies from the Labor Party and the Green Party, Morena achieved 69 votes to approve the ruling.

The opposition gathered 53 votes against, among them Monreal, who was applauded for his rejection of the pro-government line.

“I clarify that it is a strictly personal matter and does not involve the parliamentary group in which I participate.

It is a matter that moves me to assume it with all integrity and responsibility, including the outcomes, the consequences, of what this results.

That's how my life has been

public and political.

It has never been easy for me to make decisions, ”said Monreal when announcing the vote against him.

“No one should be surprised that we assume our actions with integrity.

I'm not naive and I know what I'm up against.

All I want is for the Constitution to be respected."

Moments before the vote, and given Monreal's notice of rebellion, several Morenista senators were uncertain about whether they would reach the necessary majority to comply with the instruction of the National Palace.

“I hope that it is approved.

Let's see if some colleagues who are undecided do it well," said a legislator consulted by this newspaper.

In the end it was achieved, but the fracture between Monreal and his bench, between the captain and his crew, was even more evident.

After the general approval of the reform, the plenary session of the Senate began its discussion in particular, in a new round of interventions in which several legislators –60, according to the record– will propose changes to specific articles throughout the early morning .

It is foreseeable that the morenista majority will prevent further modifications.

The Chamber of Deputies had included in the president's “plan B” that political parties could keep the registry even without having achieved 3% of the vote cast, as established by the Constitution.

Also that, when the parties participate in elections through coalitions, they can sign agreements that allow the transfer of votes to the less voted partners, so that they can save the registry.

In the same way, it had been established that the parties could save the public resources that they did not use during the fiscal year (currently they must reintegrate them into the Federation Treasury).

The Senate eliminated these three modifications, responding to the call to attention of the National Palace, but left other aspects of the reform subsisting that have aroused criticism from the opposition and social sectors,

Several opposition legislators wore a pink shirt, a symbol of the movement "in defense of the INE."

Senator Xóchitl Gálvez, from the PAN, burst into the session wearing a dinosaur costume and a sign that read "Jurassic plan."

The political chief of Movimiento Ciudadano (MC), Dante Delgado, applauded the

because, he accused, the official "plan B" is "regressive and dinosauric."

In the positions against the reform, the descriptions of “authoritarianism”, “destruction”, “regression”, “betrayal”, “rupture”, “fraud” and “disgrace” abounded.

“This reform is a slow-motion coup,” said Senator Emilio Álvarez Icaza, of the Plural Group, which brings together various legislators without a party.

"It gives rise to the worst excesses that we have been fighting, it opens the door to the election of the State and to that authoritarian Mexico of rulers who get stuck in power," he added.

The coordinator of the PAN, Julen Rementería, said that this was "the worst day in the democratic history of the six-year term and of the country."

The MC coordinator, Clemente Castañeda, affirmed that “Plan B” was a “tailor-made suit” for López Obrador's personal style of governing.

“It is a reform that seeks to create a new political hegemony through institutional destruction,” he said.

The head of the PRI, Miguel Ángel Osorio Chong, accused Morena of destroying in one week an electoral scaffolding that took 30 years to build.

“You only talk to each other, you listen to each other and you applaud each other.

They have a factious attitude,” he charged.

Beatriz Paredes, also a member of the PRI, questioned whether López Obrador, who fought against authoritarian governments when he was in the opposition, is now promoting a reform that favors his own government.

"Don't tell me that democracy was born in the

manger, " said Germán Martínez, a former collaborator of López Obrador and today clearly distanced from his project.

–Even if it hurts, yes!

–they responded from the seats of the ruling party.

Martínez said that the reform does not honor the democratic history of the country, and mentioned the names of several leftist activists and their political struggles.

"If this project prospers today, we are going to the

, to the government of the thieves, of the worst," he defined.

The morenistas and their allies launched themselves in defense of the presidential initiative.

"Insisting on saying that 'the INE is not touched' is like saying that corruption is not touched," said Gonzalo Yáñez, head of the Labor Party bench.

Morenista Casimiro Méndez sang: "The INE does touch, retouch and transform!"

César Cravioto, also from Morena and who heads the dissident group in Monreal, questioned the opposition's proclamations about democracy: he reminded the PAN members of the 2006 election, in which López Obrador has denounced fraud;

He pointed out to the PRI members the accusations of buying votes in the six-year term of Enrique Peña Nieto, and to the EMECistas he pointed out that their political boss, Dante Delgado, has been in the leadership of the party for two decades.

Cravioto showed a box of disposable tissues from a Kimberly Clark brand, a conglomerate belonging to the family of Claudio X. González, a businessman opposed to López Obrador and architect of the Va por México alliance between the PRI, PAN and PRD.

"Here I leave you a gift that your boss Claudio X. González sends you so that you can continue with your soap opera, and in case someone wants to cry because 'we are going to end democracy', here are many Kleenex to wipe their tears," He said.

The morenista took out several handkerchiefs and threw them towards the opposition seats.

Senator Lilly Téllez, from the PAN, demanded that he lift up the “cochinero” of papers.

Cravioto refused.

While both argued, a PRI member, Mario Zamora from Sinaloa, got up from his seat, walked to the stands, bent down and picked up the trash.

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