Mexico’s president defends controversial electoral reform bill

Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador says he expects court docket challenges towards measure to chop the finances of the electoral company.

Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has promised to signal into regulation a newly-passed invoice anticipated to weaken the nation’s electoral authority [File: Gustavo Graf/Reuters]

Mexico’s President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has defended a controversial invoice that might minimize the finances of the nation’s electoral company and weaken oversight of marketing campaign spending.

“All of that is a part of regular politics in a democracy,” Lopez Obrador mentioned of the laws on Thursday.

Lopez Obrador mentioned he expects court docket challenges to the invoice, like these beforehand filed towards lots of his administration’s reforms. However he added that the laws would survive them as a result of none of it was “exterior the regulation”.

The president, who has lengthy criticised the company for costing taxpayers an excessive amount of and paying excessive salaries, mentioned he'll signal the brand new invoice into regulation though electoral authorities say it may weaken democracy in Mexico.

The invoice was accepted late on Wednesday by Mexico’s Senate in a 72-50 vote.

The brand new regulation would minimize salaries and funding for native election places of work and cut back coaching for residents who function and oversee polling stations. It could additionally reduce sanctions for candidates who fail to report marketing campaign spending.

Mexico will maintain its presidential election subsequent 12 months, however Mexican presidents are restricted to a single, six-year time period by the nation’s structure, so Lopez Obrador is not going to be operating.

Whereas Lopez Obrador was nonchalant in regards to the court docket challenges, previously he has continuously attacked Mexico’s judiciary and claimed that judges are a part of a conservative conspiracy towards his administration.

Elections in Mexico are costly by worldwide requirements, partly as a result of virtually all authorized marketing campaign financing is, by regulation, provided by the federal government.

The electoral institute additionally points the safe voter ID playing cards which might be essentially the most generally accepted type of identification in Mexico, and oversees balloting in distant and sometimes harmful corners of the nation.

Protests are already deliberate towards the reform in a number of cities in Mexico, inspired by the electoral institute itself.

Federico Estevez, a retired political science professor on the Autonomous Technological Institute of Mexico, mentioned the opposition’s claims that Lopez Obrador is “dismantling democracy” are exaggerated.

“It’s not about undoing democracy. It’s a unique conception of democracy,” Estevez informed the Related Press information company. “It’s extra majoritarian, and fewer depending on insufficient, unproductive and mistaken elites.”

Lopez Obrador stays extremely widespread in Mexico, with approval rankings of about 60 %. A part of his widespread enchantment comes from railing towards high-paid authorities bureaucrats, and he has been angered by the truth that some high electoral officers are paid greater than the president.

Lopez Obrador proposed his legislative initiative, recognized as “Plan B”, in December after he didn't get hold of sufficient votes in Congress for even deeper electoral adjustments that might have altered the scale and make-up of Congress.

The president has repeatedly denied that the reform bundle may put elections in Mexico in danger.

Lopez Obrador and his supporters have been important of the electoral institute since 2006, when he misplaced the presidency by 0.56 % of the vote. He denounced his defeat as fraudulent, and he and his supporters launched a mass protest motion in response.

“That is nonetheless pushed by his grievances from these years,” Estevez famous.

Lopez Obrador later gained the presidency by a large margin in 2018.

Many in Mexico see the electoral institute as a key pillar of the nation’s trendy democracy since 2000.

Lopez Obrador’s ruling Morena get together is favoured in subsequent 12 months’s nationwide elections and the opposition is in disarray, which would appear to offer the president little incentive to assault the electoral institute.

Lorenzo Cordova, the institute’s chief, has been a frequent goal of Lopez Obrador and has aggressively defended the company.

Earlier than Wednesday’s vote, Cordova wrote on his Twitter account that the reforms “search to chop 1000's of people that work day-after-day to ensure reliable elections, one thing that may after all pose a threat for future elections”.