MEXICO’S INCOMING ELECTION CRISIS?

THE 2024 ELECTIONS IN THE COUNTRY WILL BE THE FIRST AFTER THE DRASTIC REFORM OF THE ELECTORAL BODY.

LAS ELECCIONES DE 2024 SERÁN LAS PRIMERAS TRAS LA DRÁSTICA REFORMA AL ORGANISMO ELECTORAL, PROMOVIDA POR LÓPEZ OBRADOR Y APROBADA ESTE AÑO.

By | Por: ALAN NUÑEZ | AL DÍA News Staff Writer

The war waged by Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador against Mexico’s National Election Institute (INE) took a particularly grave turn for the latter on Feb. 22, 2023, as the country’s Senate passed a bill that effectively gutted the longtime election watchdog.

The bill, which AMLO says will save the country up to $150 million a year, significantly cuts salaries for staffers at INE, decreases funding for local election offices and what goes towards training Mexican citizens that run polling stations. The new measure also cuts back on sanctions that can be leveled against candidates for campaign spending.

“The electoral system will be improved,” AMLO said. “They are going to shrink some areas so that more can be done with less.”

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For the current Mexican president and his supporters, the move to gut Mexico’s electoral watchdog is a long time coming.

The Revenge Long Play

AMLO’s beef with the institute dates back to 2006, when he narrowly lost the presidential election that year to Felipe Calderon. He immediately cried fraud and called on his supporters to protest the results, and massive demonstrations took place across the country for months.

Even at Calderon’s swearing-in ceremony, it lasted less than five minutes on account of AMLO’s supporters in Mexico’s Congress of the Union attempting to shout down the oath of office and then engaging in brawls.

The international community would later weigh in and found no electoral ir-

La guerra emprendida por el presidente mexicano Andrés Manuel López Obrador contra el Instituto Nacional Electoral (INE) de México dio un giro particularmente grave para este último el 22 de febrero cuando el Senado aprobó un proyecto de ley que destruyó al organismo de control electoral.

El proyecto de ley, que AMLO dice que le ahorrará al país hasta 150 millones de dólares al año, recorta significativamente los salarios de los funcionarios del INE, disminuye el financiamiento para las oficinas electorales locales y lo que se destina para capacitar a los ciudadanos mexicanos que administran las casillas electorales. La nueva medida también recorta las sanciones que puedan imponerse a los candidatos por gastos de campaña.

Según AMLO, “se va a mejorar el sistema electoral; se van a reducir algunas áreas para que se pueda hacer más con menos”.

Para el presidente mexicano y sus partidarios, la jugada de destripar el órgano de control electoral de México viene de mucho atrás.

La Larga

Jugada De La Venganza

La enemistad de AMLO con el Instituto se remonta al 2006, cuando perdió por un estrecho margen las elecciones presidenciales de ese año frente a Felipe Calderón. Inmediatamente, denunció fraude y llamó a sus partidarios a protestar por los resultados y durante meses se produjeron manifestaciones masivas en todo el país. Incluso, la ceremonia de investidura de Calderón duró menos de cinco minutos, debido a que los partidarios de AMLO en el Congreso de la Unión de México intentaron rechazar a gritos el juramento del cargo y luego se enzarzaron en trifulcas.

regularities during Mexico’s 2006 election, but AMLO would never forget.

Now, the most powerful elected official in Mexico and with his MORENA Party holding the majority in the country’s legislature, AMLO has completed his long play for revenge. But there have been some consequences, especially considering he’s up for re-election in 2024.

For one, even members of his own party have come out against the complete gutting of INE — first installed in 1990 and largely credited for Mexico’s multi-party democracy today. Before the

2000 election, Mexico’s electoral system had been a one-party show for 71 years under the Institutional Revolutionary Party.

Other critics in Mexico and internationally have cited fears of going back to those less democratic times, but under MORENA.

The public reaction has also been massive, as hundreds of thousands have taken to the streets in cities across Mexico protesting the bill, and expressing the same fears of waning democracy in the country.