Mexico’s president defends controversial electoral reform invoice | Elections Information

Mexico’s President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has defended a controversial invoice that might minimize the price range of the nation’s electoral company and weaken oversight of marketing campaign spending.

“All of that is a part of regular politics in a democracy,” Lopez Obrador mentioned of the laws on Thursday.

Lopez Obrador mentioned he expects court docket challenges to the invoice, like these beforehand filed in opposition to a lot of his administration’s reforms. However he added that the laws would survive them as a result of none of it was “outdoors the legislation”.

The president, who has lengthy criticised the company for costing taxpayers an excessive amount of and paying excessive salaries, mentioned he’ll signal the brand new invoice into legislation though electoral authorities say it might weaken democracy in Mexico.

The invoice was accredited late on Wednesday by Mexico’s Senate in a 72-50 vote.

The brand new legislation would minimize salaries and funding for native election places of work and cut back coaching for residents who function and oversee polling stations. It could additionally reduce sanctions for candidates who fail to report marketing campaign spending.

Mexico will maintain its presidential election subsequent 12 months, however Mexican presidents are restricted to a single, six-year time period by the nation’s structure, so Lopez Obrador is not going to be working.

Whereas Lopez Obrador was nonchalant in regards to the court docket challenges, previously he has often attacked Mexico’s judiciary and claimed that judges are a part of a conservative conspiracy in opposition to his administration.

Elections in Mexico are costly by worldwide requirements, partly as a result of nearly all authorized marketing campaign financing is, by legislation, equipped by the federal government.

The electoral institute additionally points the safe voter ID playing cards which are probably the most generally accepted type of identification in Mexico, and oversees balloting in distant and infrequently harmful corners of the nation.

Protests are already deliberate in opposition to the reform in a number of cities in Mexico, inspired by the electoral institute itself.

Federico Estevez, a retired political science professor on the Autonomous Technological Institute of Mexico, mentioned the opposition’s claims that Lopez Obrador is “dismantling democracy” are exaggerated.

“It’s not about undoing democracy. It’s a special conception of democracy,” Estevez instructed the Related Press information company. “It’s extra majoritarian, and fewer depending on insufficient, unproductive and mistaken elites.”

Lopez Obrador stays extremely well-liked in Mexico, with approval rankings of about 60 %. A part of his well-liked enchantment comes from railing in opposition to high-paid authorities bureaucrats, and he has been angered by the truth that some high electoral officers are paid greater than the president.

Lopez Obrador proposed his legislative initiative, identified as “Plan B”, in December after he didn’t get hold of sufficient votes in Congress for even deeper electoral modifications that might have altered the scale and make-up of Congress.

The president has repeatedly denied that the reform bundle might put elections in Mexico in danger.

Lopez Obrador and his supporters have been important of the electoral institute since 2006, when he misplaced the presidency by 0.56 % of the vote. He denounced his defeat as fraudulent, and he and his supporters launched a mass protest motion in response.

“That is nonetheless pushed by his grievances from these years,” Estevez famous.

Lopez Obrador later received the presidency by a large margin in 2018.

Many in Mexico see the electoral institute as a key pillar of the nation’s trendy democracy since 2000.

Lopez Obrador’s ruling Morena social gathering is favoured in subsequent 12 months’s nationwide elections and the opposition is in disarray, which would appear to present the president little incentive to assault the electoral institute.

Lorenzo Cordova, the institute’s chief, has been a frequent goal of Lopez Obrador and has aggressively defended the company.

Earlier than Wednesday’s vote, Cordova wrote on his Twitter account that the reforms “search to chop 1000’s of people that work daily to ensure reliable elections, one thing that can in fact pose a danger for future elections”.