NewsLatin AmericaMorena presses the PRI in the face of the great battle for electoral reform

Morena presses the PRI in the face of the great battle for electoral reform

Adan Augusto Lopez, Secretary of the Interior.Galo Canas (DARKROOM)

Having overcome the first objective, shielding the Army, the Government’s agenda is now moving towards what, after all, is its highest priority: electoral reform. A new constitutional change that will also require the support of the opposition. Last week, Morena obtained enough votes to carry out the reform that keeps soldiers on the streets thanks to the support of a divided PRI that, in turn, has dynamited the opposition’s common front. The architect of the strategy was the Secretary of the Interior. By direct indication of the president, Adan Augusto Lopez entered deeply into difficult negotiations that lasted weeks. With that same inertia, Lopez has already begun to increase the pressure again by slipping a probable pact with the PRI on electoral reform, a delicate issue with more political costs than support for the Army.

In one of his frequent visits to Congress, the Secretary of the Interior explained that the Government “has the hope” of reaching an agreement with the opposition. More specifically with the tricolor party: “The PRI occupy a space in the political spectrum of this country. It is up to us at this time to find consensus and see what the common issues are and move forward”. The Secretary of the Interior has even hinted that the margin of the agreement would be so wide that a second electricity reform could be considered again, the first constitutional change sought by the Government and which was blocked in April due to the lack of support from the opposition.

But since that parliamentary defeat of Morena, things have changed in the PRI. The PRI group in congress proposed on its own initiative the reform in favor of the Army in the streets, aligning itself with the government’s agenda by direct decision of the party’s president, Alejandro Moreno. The movement provoked the internal war. Numerous heavyweights of the tricolor formation accused their president of surrendering to the arms of the Government to save his skin. Moreno is being investigated by the Prosecutor’s Office in a corruption case, which has asked parliament to withdraw his jurisdiction as a deputy. The PRI group in the Senate, where critics of its president are represented, resisted in the first instance in a fight and refused to approve the reform. But last week, Morena defeated the opposition. Nine of the 13 PRI senators voted in favor.

The bet of an approach of the historic Mexican party to the formation of Lopez Obrador is taking more and more body, which would pave the way for the government’s plans. For now, the response from the PRI bench is one of caution, trying to keep a safe distance but without closing the door. The group’s congressional coordinator, Ruben Moreira, responded to Lopez’s pressure in the following way: “If there is no electoral reform, we don’t have a problem. We go with the law that exists. We respect the autonomy of the INE and the electoral tribunals. That is all”.

Despite the caution shown by Moreira, a couple of weeks ago the PRI deputies present in the parliamentary commission in charge of discussing the reform opened the door two weeks ago. “The PRI group is in favor of everything that adds to the country’s democracy,” said Javier Casique, one of the operators closest to Moreno. The president of the formation himself also came forward in a similar tone: open to debate but setting limits. “We are not going to endorse anything that harms the National Electoral Institute or the Federal Electoral Tribunal.” Some red lines that seek to cushion the political cost of the reform proposed so far by the Government, which has encountered strong resistance inside and outside the institutions.

Lopez Obrador presented a new legislative initiative in Congress at the end of April to overturn the electoral system. The project goes through including changes in up to 18 articles of the Constitution to be able to carry out the substitution of the National Electoral Institute (INE), the elimination of plurinominal deputies (elected by proportional representation, without direct vote) and reduce the local congresses. The new initiative currently proposes the replacement of the INE by a body called the National Institute of Elections and Consultations that would have seven members elected by direct and popular suffrage from a list of 60 candidates presented by the Executive, Legislative and Judicial powers. Currently, the INE has 11 councilors who are elected by consensus by Congress.

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Source: EL PAIS

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