NewsLatin AmericaLopez Obrador defends his "plan B" of the electoral reform: "The Court will decide if it is unconstitutional"

Lopez Obrador defends his “plan B” of the electoral reform: “The Court will decide if it is unconstitutional”

Lopez Obrador during his morning press conference this Friday.Rogelio Morales Ponce (Dark Room)

President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador is aware that he will face the opposition in court after Congress approved his “plan B” for electoral reform. “The law was approved, I thank the legislators, and now it goes to the Supreme Court of Justice, there they will decide if it is unconstitutional or not, but there is absolutely nothing that alters the legal procedures,” said the president in his conference daily press in the National Palace. The federal Congress approved on Thursday the reforms through which Lopez Obrador seeks to reduce the structure of the National Electoral Institute (INE) and its powers of sanction. The opposition parties have warned that they will go to the highest Mexican court to dispute the reforms, which they describe as unconstitutional.

The electoral reform promoted by the National Palace had a zigzagging path in Congress. Lopez Obrador originally wanted changes to the Constitution in search of a far-reaching reform of the Mexican electoral system. His party, Morena, was unable to negotiate with the opposition to vote in favor of this project, which was the Government’s “Plan A” and for the approval of which a qualified vote in Congress was required, that is, that three-quarters of legislators gave their approval. The federal president then sent a “plan B” to the Legislature: a set of reforms, no longer to the Constitution, but to secondary laws, for which only a simple majority vote is needed in the Chambers, which Morena and his allies of the Green Party and the Labor Party meet without problem. “Plan B” was approved this Thursday, on the brink of the closing of the regular session of Congress.

The opposition has indicated that some legal modifications disrupt the constitutional order and has announced that it will go to the Supreme Court of Justice. Even a heavyweight within the president’s own party, Ricardo Monreal, coordinator of Morena in the Senate of the Republic, voted against “plan B” on Wednesday, after pointing out that there were changes in the reform package that threaten the Constitution. Lopez Obrador took note of the vote of Monreal, an open candidate for the presidential candidacy, but said that there will be no purge within his party against dissident militants.

The president celebrated the approval of his reforms, but did not miss the opportunity to criticize the opposition for preventing “plan A.” “I think it was an important advance that this reform was approved in the Chamber of Deputies. I am very grateful to the deputies who voted in favor of this reform, even with the limitations, because a constitutional reform was not achieved, because the conservatives, antidemocratic and corrupt, prevented it, I have no doubt about that, it was a blockade without any justification, no It was a rational attitude, it was a political attitude,” he said.

Lopez Obrador criticized the opposition slogan that “the INE is not touched.” “We could not leave the precedent that an institution at the service of minorities, of an oligarchy that felt like the owners of Mexico, would remain without any changes, and that the slogan that ‘don’t touch the INE’ would be established. In a democracy no one can be untouchable. Authoritarianism does state that the untouchable cannot be touched, but in democracy it is the will of the people, and the people have the right at all times to change the form of their government, the people are sovereign, they command, they decide. That is why we decided to send the initiative for electoral reform”, justified the president.

The president maintained that the opposition movement distorted the information about the scope of his electoral reform. “There were people of good faith who allowed themselves to be manipulated, they put it into their heads that we were seeking to take over the INE, that we were going to manage the electoral roll and that the purpose was for me to be re-elected or that democracy not be allowed. Pure lies, because conservatives are very slanderous and false, and hypocrites, because apparently they are good people, with morals, but apparently, they pretend, ”he said.

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