MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexico’s Senate on Wednesday approved reform to a set of laws promoted by President Andrés Manuel López Obrador to restructure the National Electoral Institute (INE), while opponents said they would challenge the changes before the Supreme Court.
With 72 votes in favor and 50 against, the majority of the ruling party obtained, with the support of its allied forces, modifications to four laws which reduce the structure of the INE and reduce the powers of control and sanction of the parties.
When announcing the approval of the reforms, the chairman of the Senate board, Alejandro Armenta, said they would be sent to the executive for publication and entry into force.
The debate over the laws, which lasted more than seven hours, was punctuated by the sentencing in the United States on Tuesday against former Public Security Secretary Genaro García Luna, who was found guilty of accepting large bribes -de-vin to protect drug cartels. Some senators of the pro-government National Regeneration Movement (Morena) took advantage of the debate to attack opponents and accuse them of protecting former President Felipe Calderón and García Luna, who was his security secretary between 2006 and 2012, while exposing photographs of both.
With posters that read “Morena wants to steal the elections”, some opposition senators protested against the legislative package, and indicated that they hoped that the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation would admit the various actions in justice that have been brought against the reforms and stop. them.
The legislative initiative, known as “Plan B”, was promoted in December by López Obrador after he failed to secure enough votes in Congress for constitutional reform involving deeper electoral changes.
The president has repeatedly denied that the reform package could jeopardize the holding of elections in Mexico, as claimed by electoral authorities, and said the initiative was aimed at cutting the onerous INE budget and ending to his privileges.
The president assures that the current highest authorities of the INE act more as an opposition to the government than as a neutral arbiter for the elections.