The Mexican Senate approved on Wednesday a legal reform promoted by the president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, to restructure the National Electoral Institute (INE), which opposition parties will challenge changes before the country's highest court.
With 72 votes in favor and 50 against, the parliamentary majority of López Obrador's party (National Regeneration Movement, or Morena) managed, with the support of its allied forces, to approve changes to four laws that reduce the structure of the INE and subtract from it. powers to supervise and sanction political parties.
López Obrador and his wife at the National Palace on January 11.
Fernando Llano / AP
When announcing the approval of the reforms, the president of the Senate board of directors, Alejandro Armenta, said that they will be sent to the Executive for publication and entry into force.
The debate on the laws, which lasted for more than seven hours, was punctuated by the sentence handed down on Tuesday in the United States against the former Secretary of Public Security, Genaro García Luna, who was found guilty of accepting bribes from drug trafficking.
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Some Morena senators took advantage of the debate to attack the opposition and accuse it of protecting former President Felipe Calderón and García Luna, who was his security secretary between 2006-2012, while exhibiting photographs of both in the Upper House.
With posters that read "Morena wants to steal the elections", opposition senators protested the reform and indicated that they hope the Supreme Court of Justice admits the various legal actions that have been filed to stop it.
The legislative initiative, known as "Plan B", was promoted in December by López Obrador after he did not obtain enough votes in Congress for a constitutional reform that implied deeper changes, such as the creation of the National Institute of Elections and Consultations to replace the current INE.
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The president has repeatedly denied that the reform could put democracy in Mexico at risk, as denounced among others by the president of the INE, Lorenzo Cordova, and defended that he seeks to cut the budget and end some supposed privileges.
The president assures that the electoral authorities act more as opposition to the Government than as a neutral arbitrator in elections.
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Opposition parties criticized the reform as the "worst democratic setback in Mexico's history," according to Miguel Ángel Osorio Chong of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI).
Indira Rosales San Román, of the conservative National Action Party (PAN), affirmed that it is "just as harmful" as the original electoral reform proposal and "a very important setback for parity."
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What does this electoral reform consist of?
With the reforms of various electoral laws, the INE is limited politically and economically and its structures are compacted, as well as some functions of the Electoral Tribunal of the Federal Judiciary.
The project eliminates duplication of functions of the administrative areas of the INE and reduces its 300 district offices to 264.
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For the first time, it is recognized that Mexican residents abroad can vote online.
In addition, the bases for electronic voting are established and for the first time the use of instruments such as electronic wallets, such as prepaid cards, which were used to coerce and buy the vote on election day, are suppressed or prohibited.
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The parties will be obliged to guarantee candidacies from diverse groups, such as youth, indigenous people, Afro-Mexicans, migrants, LGBTQ people and people with disabilities.
According to The New York Times, the US embassy in Mexico has sent reports to Washington evaluating the potential threats to democracy that may arise.
Civil organizations, political parties and opposition legislators called for a mobilization to be held on Sunday, February 26 to protest against the reform.
More than 80 cities in Mexico and abroad are expected to participate in these marches.
With information from EFE,
The Associated Press
and
The New York Times