Perhaps it is unnecessary to analyze the electoral reform initiative that President Andrés Manuel López Obrador sent to the Chamber of Deputies last week in view of the fact that the leaders of the legislators of the four opposition parties –MC, PAN, PRD and PRI– They immediately announced that they will not approve it.
Jorge Romero, Luis Espinosa Cházaro and Rubén Moreira, who are the coordinators of the PAN, PRD and PRI, respectively, reported that they will present their own electoral reform initiatives separately. They added that the current times are not the best to discuss AMLO’s, considering that for several days he and Morenoites, PTists and Greens from all over the country described them as traitors to the Homeland.
The coordinator of the MC deputies, Jorge Álvarez Máynez, said that the initiative represents a “vulgar provocation” by the president.
The first thing that the opposition legislators have opposed is one of the main proposals of the initiative, which says, among other things: “… transform the electoral institutionality by abolishing the INE and creating in its place the National Institute of Elections and Consultations (INEC) as an independent electoral authority…”.
In his initiative, Andrés Manuel explains why “electoral institutions” must be transformed: “In recent years, the acts of these authorities have been characterized by their lack of adherence to the principles of objectivity, independence, and impartiality that are characteristic of the election function. The culminating point of this crisis of authority was the role played by the INE and the Electoral Tribunal of the Judicial Power of the Federation (TEPJF) during the process of revoking the mandate”.
What AMLO writes in the initiative could not be further from the truth.
First, because it ignores the fact that several surveys show that the INE is an institution that enjoys the confidence of a majority percentage of Mexicans.
For example, the National Survey of Civic Culture (ENCUCI) 2020, carried out by INEGI from August 17 to September 18, 2020 in 25,113 homes in the country, shows that 59.6% of people aged 15 or older have it. a lot or some trust in the INE, only below the Army and Navy and the National Guard, who are trusted by 63.8% and 60.5%, respectively.
Moreover, the percentage obtained by the INE in the survey is above that of the Presidency of the Republic (52.5%) and well above that of the Legislative branch (23.4% of people trust senators and deputies a lot or somewhat). federal and 23.0% in local deputies).
Second, because he blames the INE and the TEPJF for the failure of the revocation of the mandate when it was he and the deputies from Morena, PT and PVEM who decided to drastically reduce the INE’s budget for this year, knowing that this consultation should be carried out.
Not everything contained in AMLO’s initiative is bad. Moreover, there are very interesting and positive proposals in it.
However, it is not worth investing time to comment on the positives and negatives of the initiative while the opposition deputies refuse to discuss it. We’ll see if they change their minds, which now looks difficult.
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