:quality(85)//cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/infobae/XMF7VBYEVNCYPDMADUKMKBE6VQ.jpg "The New York Times: Mexico has dealt a severe blow to its democracy and weakened the INE 1")
He Congress of Mexico modified this Wednesday the electoral system of the country, giving a blow to the National Electoral Institute (INE), the institution which organizes and supervises the vote and which, two decades ago, helped bring the country out of a one-party regime, considered the New York Times.
For the PAN, it is suspicious that AMLO seeks to modify the INE to one year from 2024
The PAN affirmed that the actions promoted from the National Palace aim to transform the INE into another extension of the current government structure
through the Electoral Plan B of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, The operational capacity of the INE will be restricted, since its personnel will be reduced, its autonomy will also be reduced and its ability to sanction candidates who violate electoral laws will be limited, according to the analysis of reporter Natalie Kitroeff, of the North American Journal .
From the point of view of New York Timesthis series of actions by the president of mexico undermines fragile independent institutions and is part of a series of challenges to democratic standards throughout the western hemisphere.
Beatriz Paredes has warned that Electoral Plan B is a risk for a national election in 2024
Paredes argued that Plan B diminishes the duties of the electoral arbiter at the national level and poses a risk of interference from the federal government.
President Lopez Obrador, whose party controls Congress, argued that the measures will save millions of pesos by making voting cheaper and more efficient. In addition, the new rules also aim to make it easier for Mexicans living abroad to vote online, although here some critics see possible government intervention through the Foreign Affairs Secretary (SRE).
The NYT noted that some of Plan B’s critics, including some who have worked with the president, warn that the changes are an attempt to weaken a key pillar of Mexican democracy. For example, Ricardo Montreal, leader of Morena in the Senate, called the reform unconstitutional.
Lilly Téllez announced that Morena is “preparing for the big election heist” with the approval of Plan B
The PAN senator assured that the Fourth Transformation plan is supposed to render the INE “useless” so that it can “cheat” in the elections and stay in power
Opposition parties have put forward their intention to challenge the electoral reform, which is why it is now expected that in the coming months the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation (SCJN)converted by Lopez Obrador In another target of your criticism, assess the constitutionality of changes to the electoral system.
However, time is against the opposition, as they have accused Morena of intentionally delaying the formal approval of the Plan B to exhaust the deadlines for taking legal action, since the deadline for the Court to rule on this case is May 31.
If the reform is maintained, INE advisers themselves have warned that it could make it difficult to hold free and fair elections in 2024, including the race for the presidency of the Republic.
“What’s at stake is whether we’re going to have a rule of law and a distribution of powers,” said Jorge Alcocer Villanueva, who worked in the Interior Ministry (Segob) under the López Obrador government. . “That’s what would be at stake, the certainty that the vote will be respected.”
Alcocer Villanueva said that when he was coordinator of advisers in Segob, from 2018 to 2021, he and his team offered to analyze possible electoral changes, but President López Obrador said that was not part of his priorities.
Then the electorate began to be an obstacle to the agenda of the president, who wants one of his “corcholatas” to follow the agenda of what he calls the “Fourth Transformation”.
The NYT newspaper noted that the National Electoral Institute gained international recognition for facilitating fair elections in Mexico, paving the way for the opposition to win the presidency in 2000, after decades of party-dominated government. unique, namely the PRI.
However, since losing the 2006 presidential election by a narrow margin, López Obrador has argued, without providing evidence, that INE committed electoral fraud, a claim that parallels conspiracy theories of fraud propagated in United States (Donald Trump) and Brazil (Jair Bolsonaro).
Given this scenario, the US Embassy in Mexico sent reports to Washington assessing possible threats to democracy in the country, according to three US officials who spoke privately.
Although some American lawmakers have expressed concern about the situation that could unleash in Mexico with this reform, publicly the government of Joe Biden has spoken very little on the subject.