(Bloomberg) -- Lawmakers from Mexico’s ruling coalition are confident they will get the votes they need to approve the judicial reform proposed by President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador.
“And many more,” said lawmaker Juan Ramiro Robledo Ruiz, head of the lower house constitutional issues committee, when asked whether Lopez Obrador’s Morena party and allies will get the needed backing.
“There are several opposition senators who are already telling us: We are with you,” Robledo said. “There is a momentum that always goes in favor of the winner, that comes naturally.” The reform, which seeks to amend the constitution, will require approval by two-thirds majorities in both houses of congress.
Opposition leaders, like former presidential candidate Xochitl Galvez, are urging their lawmakers to stay united and block its passage. Opposition parties and legal and advocacy groups have called it a threat to democracy as it would require all Mexican judges, including Supreme Court justices, be elected by popular vote, thus undermining the independence of the nation’s judiciary.
Opposition efforts to thwart its passage seem like a long shot, because Morena and its allies won supermajority control of the lower house in the June vote, and fell just three seats shy of also winning two-thirds of the Senate.
“The best way to prevent the reform from being approved is by the cohesion of opposition senators,” said Julen Rementeria, leader of the main opposition party PAN in the Senate. “We have to be united, to stop this harmful reform.”
But Robledo said that with the June election behind them, the opposition coalition, which includes the PAN, PRI and PRD parties, may fragment, as “there is no agreement or legal commitment that can force a parliamentary group to vote in any way.”
Political Skill
Morena lower house leader Ignacio Mier is also confident that “political skill and wisdom” will get them the needed votes. “We have to do politics, that’s part of the legislative job,” he said, according to a statement from Morena’s lower house press team on July 22.
Jeffrey Weldon, a professor of political science at Mexico’s Autonomous Institute of Technology, said Morena will likely find the needed three votes, “either through getting senators to switch parties or convincing them to be strategically absent.”
AMLO, as the president is known, likely wants to see the reform passed before his term ends in September, due to his long-standing dispute with the judicial branch, Weldon said. President-elect Claudia Sheinbaum takes office Oct. 1.
Ricardo Monreal, Morena’s Senate leader, said in mid-July that congress could approve the reform before AMLO leaves office. “It would not be a bad thing if he were to enact it.”
AMLO on Wednesday sought to combat concerns about the cost of the reform, saying at his morning news conference that the judiciary has enough resources held in trusts to finance the election of judges. He also said it would be possible to begin judicial elections in the first quarter of 2025.
Robledo said his committee is now studying the proposal and that it could be out of committee in mid-August, before the new congress take office in September. The forums promoted by Morena to discuss the reform end Aug. 9, he said.
Political Calculus
Weldon has two major concerns. First, if Morena’s nominees for justices win, the judiciary becomes politicized and its independence will become suspect and compromised.
Second, courts at the state and local level could be influenced by organized crime groups. “Consider municipalities where all candidates but one are forced to withdraw from the election — the same could happen” under AMLO’s reform, he said.
One outstanding wild card that could tip the political balance comes next month when the National Electoral Institute, known as the INE, gives its final certification of the June election results after reviewing several opposition complaints.
Opposition allegations that Morena and its allies are overrepresented, violating the country’s proportional representation system, could influence INE’s final decision on the number of seats each party will get.
The ruling coalition could lose its two-thirds lower house majority, after the challenge is reviewed, said Emilio Suarez Licona, representative before the INE of the PRI party, which governed Mexico for decades.
“Of course, the government coalition will pressure and threaten opposition lawmakers to support the judicial reform, but we have to remain united,” he added.
The opposition in the past has accused the government of using local judges to mount probes of its lawmakers as a way to pressure them against blocking its proposals.
At the same time, Suarez Licona hastens to add that AMLO still has a chance to see his reform program win through.
“If it’s a useful reform for the country, the parties will support it,” he said.
(Adds AMLO comments in 12th paragraph.)
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