{"id":1020,"date":"2024-08-29T05:10:19","date_gmt":"2024-08-29T05:10:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mexiconewsreport.com\/?p=1020"},"modified":"2024-08-29T05:52:43","modified_gmt":"2024-08-29T05:52:43","slug":"amlo-the-mexican-congress-mexican-judiciary-and-foreign-meddling","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mexiconewsreport.com\/index.php\/2024\/08\/29\/amlo-the-mexican-congress-mexican-judiciary-and-foreign-meddling\/","title":{"rendered":"AMLO, the Mexican Congress, Mexican Judiciary and Foreign Meddling"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

On October 1st<\/sup>, the new Mexican Congress, elected on June 2nd<\/sup>, is slated to take office.   <\/p>\n\n\n\n

President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (AMLO) is no sitting duck president and is still very much in charge.  AMLO has a one-month overlap with the new Congress before stepping down on October 1st<\/sup> when Claudia Sheinbaum is inaugurated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the month of September, AMLO wants to ram through some reforms, including a judicial reform, which critics say will take away from the judicial independence of the Mexican Supreme Court<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The current judiciary is dead set against the proposed change.  There is currently a strike by court employees, judges and magistrates, shutting down most federal courts in Mexico.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As for the Congress, there was a dispute on how to calculate the configuration of the seats.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the Mexican Senate, 32 of the 128 senators are chosen by proportional representation.  In the Chamber of Deputies, 200 out of 500 deputies are chosen by proportional representation. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In proportional representation, seats are allocated based on the percentage of votes received by a political party nationwide.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The dispute was whether, for purposes of proportional representation, the winning coalition of MORENA\/Greens\/Labor should be counted as one party or three separate parties. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As reported by the Associated Press<\/a> “… [T]he law also stipulates that the proportional seats can\u2019t be used to give any party a majority in Congress. Morena apparently got around that by \u201clending\u201d some of its winning congressional district candidates to two allied smaller parties. The smaller parties aren\u2019t subject to the no-majority rule, but they vote in lockstep with Morena.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

When the decision came down from the electoral institute, it was that proportional representation be calculated on the basis of individual parties, not coalitions; and that they couldn\u2019t even take into account how that would affect a majority in a chamber.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The result is that the MORENA coalition got 60% of the vote in the June 2nd<\/sup> election but has 73% of the seats in the new Chamber of Deputies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The MORENA coalition (MORENA\/Greens\/Labor) has 364 seats out of 500. That\u2019s higher than the 334 seats which would give them a two-thirds super-majority.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When I wrote my previous article<\/a>  the MORENA coalition (MORENA, Green Party and Labor Party) had 83 seats out of 128 in the Senate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But in politics, things change swiftly. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

On August 28th<\/sup>, two senators-elect of the PRD party (part of the losing coalition) jumped ship and joined MORENA.    That gives the MORENA coalition 85 seats.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(How ethical is that?  Switching your party a couple of months after the election before taking office.  Of course, the voters have no say in it.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Both candidates,  Araceli Saucedo and Jose Sabino, had pledged in the campaign not to switch parties.   In one campaign video, Sabino said  \u201cJust like you, I’m tired of the same old grasshopper politicians (who jump from party to party). You have to keep your word<\/strong>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Well, so much for that pledge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Losing presidential candidate Xochitl Galvez said of the two that  \u201cHistory will judge them as traitors who took part in the attack on democracy.\u201d  But Xochitl doesn\u2019t have much influence now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So now, in the Senate, the MORENA coalition has 85 senators out of 128, just one seat short of a super-majority.  How hard would it be to entice one more senator to jump ship and join the winners?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bottom line, the MORENA coalition looks unbeatable.  It probably can ram through the judicial reforms and other legislation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It looks like this will make MORENA, already the dominant party in Mexico<\/a>, even stronger.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The U.S. ambassador even got involved. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ken Salazar, the American ambassador to Mexico, released a declaration<\/a> on Twitter X on August 22nd<\/sup>, in which he called the proposed reform a \u201crisk<\/strong>\u201d for Mexico, threatening the U.S.-Mexican commercial relationship and that it would help drug cartels \u201ctake advantage of inexperienced judges with political motivations<\/strong>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Mexican government responded swiftly, sending a diplomatic note to the U.S. embassy. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

AMLO discussed the matter at length in his August 23rd<\/sup> morning press conference<\/a>. Here’s a photo of AMLO and the Mexican diplomatic note writ large:
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Source: Mexican Presidential Website<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

In his long discussion, AMLO declared that \u201c[W]e do not accept any representative of a foreign government intervening in affairs that only correspond to we Mexicans to resolve<\/strong>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

AMLO certainly has a point about meddling. \u00a0At least Ambassador Salazar could have made his concerns known in private.\u00a0 But making it public was just begging AMLO to respond publicly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the other hand, for years the Mexican government has openly meddled in U.S. immigration and nationality policy, and American politicians don\u2019t seem to mind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Canada too got into the act, with Canadian ambassador Graeme Clark warning of investment concerns (which is a real concern). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

So on August 27th<\/sup>, AMLO declared a pause in relations with the U.S. and Canadian embassies.   Not breaking relations or anything that drastic.  Just the silent treatment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What about the investment community?    On August 23rd<\/sup>, Associated Press<\/em> reported that
 \u201cOn Tuesday [August 20th<\/sup>], Morgan Stanley downgraded its recommendation for investing in Mexico, saying the changes would \u2018increase risk.\u2019 In an analysis report, Citibanamex warned that passage of the proposal could end in the \u2018cancellation of liberal democrac<\/strong>y.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Is Mexico headed back to de facto<\/em> one-party state rule ?   Hopefully not, but MORENA is the dominant party and is getting even more dominant.    And the political opposition seems helpless. 
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On October 1st, the new Mexican Congress, elected on June 2nd, is slated to take office.   President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (AMLO) is no sitting duck president and is still very much in charge.  AMLO has a one-month overlap … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,10],"tags":[14,184,153,187,186,27,4,181,185,180,182,17,28],"class_list":["post-1020","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-legal-system","category-politics","tag-amlo","tag-araceli-saucedo","tag-associated-press","tag-canada","tag-citibanamex","tag-claudia-sheinbaum","tag-congress","tag-graeme-clark","tag-jose-sabino","tag-ken-salazar","tag-morgan-stanley","tag-supreme-court","tag-xochitl-galvez"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mexiconewsreport.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1020","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mexiconewsreport.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mexiconewsreport.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mexiconewsreport.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mexiconewsreport.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1020"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/mexiconewsreport.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1020\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1034,"href":"https:\/\/mexiconewsreport.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1020\/revisions\/1034"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mexiconewsreport.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1020"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mexiconewsreport.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1020"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mexiconewsreport.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1020"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}