AMLO leaves little to chance in quest to reform Mexico’s judiciary – BNN Bloomberg

(Bloomberg) — Nationwide strikes. Stark warnings from the U.S. that democracy is in danger. Backlash from investors that has sent the currency tumbling. None of this has quelled President Andrés Manuel Lopez Obrador’s desire to push through a controversial plan that would require the election of Mexico’s federal judges.

But the president known as AMLO is in fact doing everything he can to ensure the success of his long quest to overhaul the judiciary. Earlier this month, leaders of his Morena party began their bid to pass the reform before he leaves office at the end of September, unveiling legislation calling for judicial elections to begin in 2025.

With a key congressional committee set to review the plan on Monday, opponents point to a subtle change in the sweeping proposal as evidence of AMLO’s win-at-all-costs strategy. The tweak places electoral judges in a group that doesn’t have to be voted on until 2027 — a reprieve for the very officials who currently determine how many seats AMLO’s coalition holds in Congress.

“This is very serious,” said Judge Juana Fuentes Velazquez, the head of JUFED, one of Mexico’s most important legal associations. “It’s a prize for the judges to rule in their favor at a time when they’re about to rule.”

Morena Senate leader Ricardo Monreal this week dismissed the claims, saying the change was intended to allow electoral judges to oversee the first round of judicial votes, which includes Supreme Court elections.

It is “a strictly mandatory matter to provide certainty and legal certainty for the elections,” he said in a written response to questions from Bloomberg News.

‘Big risk’

Efforts to thwart the reform push have intensified as the first vote in the lower house’s constitutional affairs committee approaches.

Judges and legal workers across the country began strikes this week against the proposal. U.S. Ambassador to Mexico Ken Salazar criticized the reforms in a statement Thursday, warning that they would pose a “grave risk” to democracy while making it easier for drug cartels and organized crime to infiltrate the judiciary. Canada’s ambassador joined in, saying investors had expressed grave concerns about the plan.

The Mexican peso has fallen 11% since the June election amid AMLO’s pledges to use Morena’s win to pass reforms. The political noise, coupled with the continued unwinding of so-called carry trades, pushed the peso to its lowest level since 2022 this week. It is the only major currency to fall in August, and by far the worst performer among the 16 majors tracked by Bloomberg.

But AMLO and his allies appear undeterred by the developments: the president on Friday called Salazar “disrespectful,” while President-elect Claudia Sheinbaum — a member of Morena — called the strikes illegal and dismissed investor concerns about the reforms in public comments this week.

This has led to more attention being paid to the electoral court, which must rule on the ongoing election disputes on Wednesday.

Morena and her coalition easily passed the electoral threshold needed to pass constitutional reforms in the lower house in June’s elections, finishing just two seats shy of a two-thirds majority in the Mexican Senate, according to results certified Friday by the National Electoral Institute.

However, the opposition has alleged in complaints that Morena has fielded some of its own candidates as members of other allied parties, in an attempt to circumvent constitutional provisions that limit individual parties to a maximum of 300 lawmakers in the lower house.

Morena and her coalition, which won 364 seats in June, have denied the claims, saying the lawmakers come from different parties and that the opposition has historically benefited from that “overrepresentation.”

The opposition sees the challenges as a way to reduce the size of Morena’s majorities and complicate the reform process. A victory for Morena’s coalition, on the other hand, would smooth the legislative path for the proposed overhaul.

Monreal said the constitutional commission would make the final decision on when to elect the judges. He questioned whether a pressure campaign against the electoral tribunal would work at all.

“I know the judges personally; they will not be blackmailed by anyone,” he told reporters Tuesday. “They will not be pressured by anything, I know their moral authority.”

But to reform opponents, this is AMLO’s latest attempt to undermine Mexican democracy.

Senator Kenia Lopez called on the National Electoral Institute and the Electoral Court “not to bow” to the government. In a speech to the House on Wednesday, he said this would give AMLO and Morena the votes to “destroy” the country’s institutions.

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