It always seemed to me that proclaiming his party’s mission to achieve the “fourth transformation”—suggesting that this would prove equivalent to those of Independence, Reform, and Revolution—was a colossal blunder on the part of Andrés Manuel López Obrador. It seemed implausible that anyone, even a demagogue like the founder of Morena, would dare compare himself to the exceptional Mexicans who had laid the foundations of our nation. As absurd as it seemed, his bombastic proclamation became a riddle: What was the true nature of the Morena transformation in power? In the final months of his administration and the first months of his successor, Claudia Sheinbaum, the riddle was fully resolved: the promised transformation was the replacement of our young democracy with a tyranny.
The “transformations” that preceded Morena’s “fourth” are indelibly etched in our history. The first was that in which despots and caciques transformed the promising independence of the young nation into misery for the people and the loss of a large part of the national territory. Many years of impoverishing fratricidal struggles and bad governments passed, before the liberal patriots carried out the Reform enshrined in the Constitution of 1857, which gave us the foundations to build a free and democratic republic. Furthermore, the liberals, under the leadership of President Juárez, resisted and defeated a French invasion that, in complicity with the conservative traitors, sought to impose a foreign prince as sovereign.
Unfortunately, one ruler’s lust for power ultimately conflicted with the ideals of the liberal Constitution and transformed the Reform into a prolonged dictatorship. In 1910, the movement led by Francisco I Madero overthrew the dictatorship and restored the democratic republic. However, the ever-lurking forces of authoritarianism soon conspired to assassinate him. Thus, Madero’s democracy was transformed into a tyranny.
Mexicans threw off that usurping power in 1914. The Mexican Revolution gave rise to the 1917 Constitution and once institutionalized, made possible a long period of stability and progress, although it delayed delivering the promise of democracy that had given birth to the Revolution itself. However, thanks to the efforts of citizens, intellectuals, and politicians of several generations and different affiliations, progressively, reforms were implemented to make the democracy that Madero had promised a reality. As the 20th century drew to a close, Mexicans were finally able to proudly say that we belonged to a nation with authentic democracy, the same one that the rulers of Morena are now transforming into another tyranny.
Far from honoring the feats of Independence, Reform and Revolution, the Morena movement is emulating the treasons committed against them, same ones that transformed those extraordinary and promising episodes in our history into tragedies for the nation. Having come to power thanks to the democracy that we Mexicans achieved after many struggles, López Obrador and his party have worked hard—and have made great progress—to destroy it. If not corrected, this disgrace will have terrible consequences for the present and future of the country. It will not only close the road to development for Mexico but also will restrict the freedom and fundamental rights of Mexicans.
Mexico’s current misfortune convinced me to reverse the decision I had made, when I concluded my term as president, to refrain from publicly commenting on the nation’s political events. I did so precisely on the day1 that López Obrador—mockingly on September 15th, our Independence Day, and with the president-elect at his side—signed the constitutional reforms intended to destroy the independence and professionalism of the Mexican judiciary. Other reforms have followed that will complete the task of demolishing our young democracy.
The indignation I feel in the face of this reality would be identical under any circumstance, but the fact that, by mandate of the Mexican people, I was part of the construction of the democracy that is now under siege, persuaded me to break my silence to denounce this historic abuse.
From my nomination as a presidential candidate, throughout my electoral campaign, and upon taking office, I pledged to undertake the necessary reforms to make Mexico a true democracy, including, of course, its indispensable element: an independent Judiciary. This commitment was driven by my conviction that Mexico had failed to meet our people’s demands for economic, social, and political progress because it had fundamentally failed to build an authentic democracy.
Since the end of the revolutionary armed struggle in the 1920s, our country was one in which, unlike many others in Latin America and the world, the Executive and Legislative powers were periodically renewed through regular, multi-party, albeit defective, elections. Even though the Constitution stipulated democracy as our political regime, the formal and informal rules were such that, for a long time, political parties other than the PRI -my party- had no chance of winning those periodic elections. At the national and local levels, governments, both executive and legislative, repeatedly came from the same party, albeit with the golden rule of non re-election. Those same governments were responsible for organizing and validating the elections. Undoubtedly, the political stability allowed by a single dominant party produced significant economic and social progress for several decades and allowed for the creation of important and useful institutions.
But it also came at a high cost: an arbitrary exercise of power permitted by the lack of checks and balances by Congress and the Judiciary. Contrary to the Constitution, Congress failed to regulate the president’s actions and instead gave unconditional support to the executive branch. This support was beneficial sometimes for certain purposes. However, at times of big challenges, it also condoned the abuse of authority, resulting in misguided policies that led to severe economic crises and even political repression.
The 1917 Constitution mandated the independence and impartiality of the Judiciary, but a succession of reforms soon ignored that principle. Ultimately, those reforms generally sought to expand the president’s ability to influence, and even control, the Supreme Court, with the goal of allowing his governing actions to be carried out unhindered by an independent Judiciary. There were multiple means of executive control over it, from the appointment of justices and judges to the control of its budget. For most of the 20th century, the judiciary was simply part of Mexico’s political system, based on the dominance of one party, essentially subservient to the current leadership. The Court frequently failed to protect individual rights, approved wrongheaded government policies and actions that lacked a constitutional basis, and limited citizens’ access to justice.
It was clear to me that Mexico could never have an effective democracy without a professional, impartial, and independent judiciary, headed by a Supreme Court with those same attributes and the precise authority to declare laws and government actions unconstitutional when adequately justified. To remedy the anti-democratic anomaly of not having an independent Judiciary, five days after assuming the presidency, I sent a constitutional reform initiative to Congress. I publicly explained the importance of the proposed reform to the public, but what was also crucial was to personally go to both houses of Congress to respectfully request legislators from all parties to seriously consider the initiative as well as to begin working together toward a significant electoral reform. In my meetings with legislators, the premise was always dialogue with all political parties, never imposition. With modifications introduced by Congress itself in the exercise of its powers, the achievement of the 1994 reform represented a break with Mexico’s quasi-authoritarian past, to which a Court essentially subordinated to the president had been an unfortunate key element.
The 1994 reform significantly and sensibly strengthened judicial oversight and the constitutional powers of the Court, granting it a broader and stronger power to rule on the constitutionality of acts of authority and laws, and to repeal all or part of the law or act under its control. It was empowered to adjudicate legal disputes between the federal and state governments, between state governments and municipalities, and between different municipalities. It was also empowered to rule on unconstitutional cases brought by only one-third of either house of the federal Congress against federal laws or resolutions, and by only one-third of state legislatures against their own laws or state resolutions. The reform not only strengthened federalism but also its ability to protect the rights of political minorities. Furthermore, the reform established the Judicial Council, which was charged with functions such as administering the judicial budget, appointing lower courts, determining rigorous merit and performance criteria, and establishing proper oversight mechanisms. As a result, the professional standards for members of the judiciary were strengthened, and the traditional laxity for politically motivated appointments and retirements was curbed.
Once the judicial reform was enacted, I called on all political parties to begin negotiations for an electoral reform that would make Mexico a full and functioning democracy. The country had made progress in that direction since the notable political reform of 1977, which was followed by other reforms over the years, although none achieved an ideal result. Electoral rules and procedures had evolved to ensure an accurate vote count. For this reason, unlike previous cases, no opposition party challenged the legality of my election in 1994. However, the conditions for electoral competition remained inequitable. I did not hesitate to publicly affirm that my election had been legal, but not fair. This was my way of signaling my firm intention to seriously and in good faith negotiate the proposed reform.
The negotiations that followed were extremely arduous, for many reasons. Not only were the issues complex and required overcoming mistrust among the parties, but they also had to be conducted amidst a terrible financial crisis that hit the country at the start of the new administration. We resolutely confronted the economic turmoil, with painful but necessary—and obviously unpopular—actions, all of which created a political environment unfavorable to negotiations. It was clear to me that the tough decisions I had to make to confront the crisis would encourage opportunistic and demagogic politicians to profit politically from the situation. I didn’t care, as my duty wasn’t to be popular but to do what was necessary for Mexico to overcome soon the threat of sinking into economic stagnation and social decline for many years. It was achieved, with everyone’s efforts. In the next five years, the country’s economy grew at an annual average considerably higher than that recorded in two decades, a level that unfortunately has not been repeated. At the same time, social policies that directly combated poverty were implemented successfully. This was done without political conditioning or electoral clientelism, as these constitute the most undignified and humiliating treatment of the disadvantaged groups. Despite the difficulties, after eighteen months of arduous efforts, the process reached a satisfactory conclusion: all parties agreed on a major constitutional reform that radically changed electoral institutions, rules, and procedures.
As a result of this reform, the Federal Electoral Institute (IFE) became truly autonomous from the executive branch. Among many important outcomes, the reform established precise conditions for the financing and media access of political parties and their candidates to guarantee fairness in electoral competition. It also stipulated the principle that the electoral authority must have sufficient budgetary resources to meet the highest standards in human resources, equipment, and all other necessary capabilities required to fulfill its crucial responsibility of protecting the citizens’ vote. The defense of this right was reinforced with the creation of an autonomous Federal Electoral Tribunal within the judiciary to resolve all electoral disputes, while also giving the Supreme Court the power to decide on the constitutionality of electoral laws at both the federal and state levels.
Thanks to the 1996 reform, the citizens of Mexico City gained the right to democratically elect their head of government, rather than having the position appointed by the president, as had long been the case.
The 1996 reform established the conditions for Mexico to finally have competitive, impartial, and fair elections as I had committed. The leaders at the time of all the political parties participated honorably and enrichingly, for whom I have always held respect and gratitude. That reform, along with the 1994 reform of the Judiciary, provided the conditions for a democracy with a true division of powers and a presidency effectively balanced by the other branches of government. This marked the end of the autocratic and abusive presidency and the long-awaited arrival of a truly democratic presidency.
With the institutions, rules, and procedures created by both reforms, elections to the federal Congress were held in 1997. My party lost the absolute majority it had enjoyed for almost seven decades, and a new era of “divided” but certainly democratic government began. Furthermore, the 2000 elections produced, for the first time in modern Mexican history, a president from an opposition party.
Although these reforms transformed Mexico into a truly democratic nation, I did not think of them as never requiring changes. I understood that experience in their implementation and, of course, changes in the country’s internal and external circumstances would make it advisable and necessary, over time, to adjust the provisions of the 1994 and 1996 reforms, as well as to seek additional institutional advances. I was confident, however, that any new reform would strengthen our democracy until it became solid and irreversible, and that the legality, competence, and independence of both the electoral institutions and the judiciary, as cornerstones of the system, would always be respected.
Unfortunately, this condition, essential for the existence of democracy, has been systematically violated by López Obrador, even many years before becoming president of the country and undoubtedly with much greater aggressiveness since sworn in that position. The former president relentlessly attacked the independence and institutional capacity of the National Electoral Institute (INE, as it was renamed). For no good reason, he did not hesitate to slander, insult, and threaten both the institution and the people elected to ensure that the INE fulfilled its constitutional mission. In addition, he pursued with success an arbitrary and significant reduction in the resources necessary for the INE’s proper functioning.
López Obrador always showed open and defiant disregard for the rules and procedures established by law regarding what the government should not do before, during, and after election campaigns. The then president, along with the high-ranking members of his administration and party, repeatedly violated the principles of impartiality, neutrality, and equity during federal and state elections to favor the ruling party’s candidates. Every time the INE warned the Executive Branch about any illegality, its response was always rejection, mockery, and contempt.
He was equally aggressive with the Judiciary for not only did he question, outside of legal proceedings, the rulings of judges, magistrates, and justices when their opinions or sentences were not to his liking, but he also slandered and insulted the institution and individual members of the Judiciary.
Among all of López Obrador’s attacks on the independence of electoral authorities and the Judiciary, what was by far politically the most profitable for him, was his strategy of maneuvering to fill vacancies in the Supreme Court, the INE , and the Electoral Tribunal with people willing to obey his instructions, even in violation of the Constitution and the law—people who repeatedly failed to meet even the required ethical and professional standards to hold those positions.
It was notorious how, early in his term, he created a vacancy on the Supreme Court, before the legally established deadline for replacement, through threats and extortion of a justice. Rather than pursuing capable jurists, his plot to place loyalists on the Court, became brutally evident to all with the case of a justice who had obtained her law degree with a plagiarized thesis. When she was denounced, far from resigning, she clung –with López-Obrador’s full support– to her position and incredibly is now campaigning to be reelected to the Court and even become its president. In contrast, when López Obrador promoted the appointment of a prepared and honest jurist who did not comply with his demands, he proceeded to say that her arrival to the Court had been a mistake and shamelessly called her a “traitor.” His greatest trophy in the Judiciary was having subdued, through still unknown means, the then president of the Court, who not only validated unconstitutional actions by the Executive Branch and Congress, but also illegally attempted to extend his term as president. He later resigned his position as justice prematurely to become an advisor to the government and, as such, help planning the demolition of the Judiciary, the very branch that had honored him as its member. Furthermore, with that premature retirement, that justice gifted the president with another vacancy, which was used to further degrade the quality and autonomy of the Court.
The criterion of obedience to the ruling party also prevailed in the appointments to fill vacant positions on the electoral authorities (the INE and the Electoral Tribunal), appointments ultimately facilitated the commission of serious illegalities by López Obrador and Morena. Those appointees, who evidently failed their duty of care and obedience to the Constitution, dare to grant the ruling party and its coalition partners 74% of the seats in the Chamber of Deputies, despite having obtained 54% of the votes. The ruling party justified this blatant overrepresentation, which flagrantly violated the Mexican Constitution, through a twisted and ill-intentioned interpretation of the rules for allocating seats to coalitions. Morena and its allies were handed out a supermajority (more than two-thirds) in the Chamber of Deputies, giving them the power to approve constitutional reform initiatives. In the Senate, they were one vote short of a supermajority. They obtained it obscenely by offering an opposition senator impunity for himself and his family members, all of whom were accused of serious crimes. The alleged violations of the law by that family have now been shelved.
López Obrador would soon use the supermajorities, obtained through constitutional fraud and a mafia-style act, to exact his revenge against the Supreme Court, which, having kept a majority enough to act with integrity and simply apply the Constitution, had gotten in his way. He had his “reform” initiative ready to demolish the federal Judiciary that had existed since 1995, with a clear objective of destroying its independence, professional standards, and other capacities to administer justice.
The Chamber of Deputies of the new Legislature began its sessions on September 1, 2024; 80% of the deputies were serving for the first time. Without sufficient time to read, study or discuss the judicial reform initiative, the ruling party’s supermajority approved it on September 3. The Senate followed suit eight days later. Also obscene was the two-day period in which state legislatures with pro-government majorities ratified what had been approved by the federal Congress, without adhering to the procedures established by law. Thus, the legislative process for the approval of López Obrador’s initiative was a gross fraud to the Constitution, the laws, and the internal regulations of the chambers of Congress. Its approval categorically became a historic felony.
With the so-called “judicial reform,” all judges, magistrates, and justices of the federal judiciary will be removed and replaced by people supposedly elected by popular vote. These elections are a farce not only in their justification but also in their execution, as has already been clearly demonstrated by events during recent months. In fact, the government has selected farcically most of the candidates, evidently without ensuring that they truly possess the professional and ethical qualifications to administer justice. The formal requirements to be a candidate for judge or magistrate are patently ridiculous. Furthermore, the conditions for voting in conditions of fairness, integrity, and transparency are not being met. Resorting to grotesque trickery, the rules and practices that guaranteed respect for the Mexican people’s vote, which have existed since the 1996 electoral reform, are being discarded. The June judicial election seems more like a rehearsal for what is to come for future federal and state electoral processes, where opacity and fraud, even worse than in the old days, will be the dominant features. It’s clear that the entire scheme is designed to create a federal judicial system subject to the will of the party that already controls the executive and legislative branches, a party that in turn remains controlled by López Obrador.
The election procedure will be replicated for the state judiciaries. It is evident that the members of the Judiciary thus installed will not owe their positions to the people who happen to vote in the judicial elections—since those elections will be a monumental sham— but rather, those individuals will owe their positions to their political patrons who included them on the electoral lists, as well as to other questionable promoters who could well be criminals who finance and support their campaigns.
There will, therefore, be judges, magistrates, and justices who will obey not the law, but the dominant political power. And if there were any doubt, let us not forget that the new regime will also have the means to punish the “disobedient,” as can easily be seen by looking at the bodies that will replace the Judicial Council: a new judicial administration body and the shameful Judicial Disciplinary Tribunal.
The reform offers nothing to improve the State’s capacity to seek and deliver justice. It lacks the necessary institutional changes and additional resources—human and material—to make the fundamental right to justice effective. Furthermore, it falls far short of what should exist in any democracy: equality before the law, protection of rights, impartiality, access to justice, responsiveness, transparency, due process, and proportionality. In fact, it is designed to violate virtually every one of these principles. Its intention, to put it simply, is to obliterate the judiciary as an independent and professional entity and place it at the service of those who hold and concentrate political power.
All the arguments put forward by former President López Obrador, and repeated by his successor, in defense of this legal and political atrocity are fallacious from start to finish. They have said, for example, that judges are also elected by popular vote in other parts of the world, citing the United States as a reference. However, they fail to clarify that this never occurs at the federal level and that only some states do so at the local level. In fact, the consensus of serious constitutional scholars around the world is crystal clear: the election of judges by popular vote undermines, and even nullifies, judicial impartiality, independence, and integrity.
Another example of the manipulation with which the former president and the president have defended the removal of the entire federal and state judiciaries by their reform is their malicious reference to the December 1994 reform. President Sheinbaum –sorrowfully imitating López-Obrador– has even said that “Zedillo disappeared the Court.” This is a completely false statement. To have a compact, competent, and renewable Supreme Court, the 1994 reform changed the lifetime term to a fifteen-year term and adjusted its size from twenty-six (which had been reached for essentially political reasons) to eleven justices. This number was the number established by the 1917 Constitution. Adapting to a smaller Court posed the challenge of avoiding disrespectful or self-serving distinctions among the then lifetime justices. To address this fairly, the reform incentivized the early retirement of all of them, which also allowed for an immediate return to the original rule of the 1917 Constitution, which required the Senate to elect the justices from lists of three candidates presented by the Executive Branch. The nominees had to meet specific and unprecedentedly rigorous standards. The president no longer had the power to appoint justices, and therefore it was not appropriate for me to determine which of the twenty-six justices should retire and who should remain to reduce the number of justices for the new court. This is why the 1994 reform facilitated the retirement of the entire membership of the Court, as it happened in 1995. The lists I submitted to the Senate were based on nominations made by bar associations, academic legal institutions, and distinguished jurists, which included a few of those who would retire. I was pleased that I had never had any prior professional, political, or personal relationship with any of the eleven people elected by the Senate to be Justices of the Court in 1995. That Supreme Court of Justice provided irrefutable proof of its independence during my tenure by ruling against the Executive Branch I headed on very important matters, decisions that were invariably and fully respected by the federal government.
These facts, rigorously reported by multiple academic and general information sources, attest to the slanderous nature of the reference to the 1994 reform used by the former president and the president to advocate for their own reform. They conceived theirs to subordinate the judiciary to the executive branch, in no way to make it independent and strengthen it as had been achieved thirty years ago. Regrettably, the public defense of the anti-democratic reform has recently been led by the president of Mexico herself, who has not been shy about repeating the rhetoric—including the insults—that her predecessor used to justify his egregious initiative; nor has she been shy about copying the questionable methods used to impose it.
Their reform is plainly antidemocratic, as it not only violates the necessary separation of powers, but also fatally undermines the Supreme Court’s constitutional oversight function, which it must perform: to review and evaluate whether the acts and laws of the Executive and Legislative branches comply with the Constitution and, if not, to annul or declare them inapplicable. The objective of invalidating this essential function of the Court has been unquestionably made clear by the way in which the ruling party has destroyed the existing constitutional safeguards in its eagerness to push through a reform that violates universal principles of justice and human rights.
As expected, the Morena’s reform was appealed to the Supreme Court of Justice. Eight of the Court’s eleven justices were required to approve the draft ruling that would have declared it substantially unconstitutional. It was a given that three justices, appointed during the previous president’s term and who systematically and docilely supported López-Obrador’s actions, would vote against the proposed ruling. At the last minute, a fourth justice joined this group to oppose the ruling, thus preventing its approval. Frankly, this about-face was reminiscent of how the ruling party had achieved a supermajority in the Senate. The justice himself tried to justify his sudden alignment with the ruling party, but his reasons only fueled suspicion. His claim that he did not vote for the draft ruling because the Supreme Court had never declared a constitutional reform unconstitutional is grotesque. Simply put, the Court had never been faced with such a predicament because there had not been any attempt to autocratically and radically change the political regime inherited from the Mexican Revolution. Not even during the hegemonic PRI regime did its governments dare to formally discard—although their practice left much to be desired—the institutional architecture of democracy, separation of powers, and fundamental rights, envisioned in the 1917 Constitution, a destruction that Morena’s judicial and other reforms clearly seek. It was in the hands of that justice to empower the Court to stop this extremely serious attack on democracy and the rule of law in the country. With his dissenting vote, to his disgrace, the justice allowed a fundamental change in the country’s political regime for which, contrary to what the president and the former president falsely claimed, the people of Mexico have never been consulted, certainly not in the last federal elections.
In its pursuit of ensuring that the Supreme Court would not declare López Obrador’s initiative unconstitutional, the Morena regime carried out another serious offense: a reform they deceitfully called “constitutional supremacy.” Approved as usual in a hush-hush manner, with the full support of President Sheinbaum, this new reform establishes that any modification to the Constitution approved by the federal Congress and ratified by a majority of state congresses will be final and cannot be reviewed or declared invalid by the Supreme Court, even if it conflicts with other articles of the Constitution.
This appalling action eliminates the Court’s ability to exercise control over the content of constitutional reforms, including reviewing their compatibility with principles of the highest hierarchy, such as fundamental rights or those essential to calling Mexico a democratic nation. In other words, the Morena government has granted itself the prerogative to implement constitutional changes without any judicial oversight, even if these violate unalienable rights, the separation of powers, and other essential foundations on which democracy and the rule of law must be based. Undoubtedly, this enormous step toward a tyrannical regime places Mexico in contempt of international treaties that, among other important matters, seek to promote, respect, protect, and guarantee the supremacy of human rights in international law.
Imagination is the only limit to the atrocities the Morena government is already committing and could commit with the elimination of judicial oversight over changes to the Constitution. Consider that with its “constitutional supremacy,” the regime could drastically restrict freedom of expression and association and even go so far as to eliminate the presidential non-reelection—no less of what gave rise to the Mexican Revolution.
The wide door to authoritarianism that the Morena government has paved through a series of illegal and undemocratic acts is being used shamelessly. This is clear in the case of their judicial reform, but also in the constitutional elimination of the so-called autonomous bodies responsible for sensitive matters such as access to information and data protection, the promotion of competition and the prevention of monopolistic practices, regulation in the energy sector, regulation of telecommunications and broadcasting, and the measurement of poverty and evaluation of social policy.
These bodies were granted, through the Constitution itself or through laws, formal independence from the government, with commissioners appointed through processes, involving not only Congress but also civil society, which sought to reduce direct interference from the executive branch. They were also legally mandated to operate with technical, not political, criteria, consistent with decisions based on studies and objective evidence, with the obligation to be accountable to Congress and to make their performance transparent through public reports. By transferring these functions to government control, greater opportunities will be created for arbitrariness, decisions with exclusively political ends, opacity, and concealment, and, of course, corruption. The government will have at its disposal additional instruments to increase political clienteles and sources of covert financing for its party, in addition to facilitating the corruption of government officials. With the disappearance of these autonomous bodies, another important counterweight to the abusive use of public power is being lost; in other words, another part of the core of the country’s democracy is being curtailed.
The regime took advantage of its fraudulent control of Congress to commit another act of savagery against democracy and the individual rights of Mexicans: establishing solid foundations for the creation of a police state. This starts with the co-optation of the armed forces which historically –unlike in other Latin American countries– had been constitutionally and functionally subject to civilian power. Now they are being captured, by not only handing them the National Guard (police)—something that has only occurred in non-democratic countries—but, perhaps more sinisterly, also by leaving them open to becoming a stakeholder in the preservation of an authoritarian and corrupt regime. The principle, established since the 1857 Constitution, that the armed forces may only perform functions that are strictly related to military discipline, has now been abolished. From now on, this important clarification disappears, and the armed forces will have to do whatever the laws, drafted by the ruling party, indicate. Yet, they will preserve their military jurisdiction and will not be subject to the conditions of transparency and accountability applicable to civilians participating in similar activities. Turning armies and their commanders into accomplices of Latin American and other dictatorships has yielded excellent results for despotic rulers. This experience is now being institutionalized in Mexico with Morena in power. But that’s not all: the National Guard—now an arm of the military—will be able to investigate crimes autonomously and independently of the public prosecutor’s office. Recent reforms have also expanded the grounds for the ominous official pretrial detention, which will make it easier for a person under investigation to be imprisoned, at the mere request of an authority, regardless of the merits of the accusation, for the duration of the criminal proceedings against them. Added to this atrocity, which is incompatible with international human rights standards, are the limitations that the Morena congress has also imposed on the amparo trial.
Thus, with the militarization of security and criminal investigation; with the corrupt co-optation of the armed forces; with the official pretrial detention; with the illegal prosecutorial intimidation already practiced daily; with the elimination of the effective right to information and transparency—which also includes the elimination of the portal that existed for twenty-eight years to review and investigate federal government contracts; and above all, with the absence of an independent judiciary, a clear portrait of the structure of a police state characteristic of an authoritarian and repressive regime is now in place. These tools will be available to the ruling party to be fully utilized when its other methods of political control lose effectiveness. The Morena government will be immensely powerful to oppress any dissent and trampling on all essential principles of the rule of law.
The disappearance of the independent judiciary and autonomous bodies, as well as the preparations for a police state, seriously harm Mexican democracy, but the final nail in its coffin will come from the ongoing electoral counter-reform, another dishonorable legacy of López Obrador that President Sheinbaum has also come out to support. If this counter-reform is implemented, the National Electoral Institute and state electoral bodies would be eliminated, replacing them with a National Institute of Elections and Consultations, administered by councilors elected by popular vote. This means in practice that they would be chosen by the government, just as in the ongoing fraudulent simulation of the judicial election. To be precise, the organization of elections will return to government control. Likewise, the Chamber of Deputies is intended to be reduced to 300 legislators and the Senate to 64. The announced pure proportional representation would mean that if the ruling party were to regain 54% of the votes, it would control more than 80% of the deputies and more than 90% of the senators. This would result in a return to the situation prior to the Reyes-Heroles 1977 reform, when pluralities and minorities had no representation in Congress and the hegemonic party won systematically everything. To close the loop on electoral control, the plan is to narrow the list of violations of electoral laws, reduce the penalties for such violations, and substantially reduce funding for parties and electoral campaigns.
To justify the destruction of the electoral body that in just a few years became an international model, the claim is made, among other senseless reasons, that it must be done to save tax-payer’s money. Frankly, for the nation, having a clean democracy will never be more expensive than having a dirty tyranny. Therefore, citizens must be willing to pay for that democracy, because without it, the costs will be much greater in terms of lost freedom and progress.
Don’t forget that those who argue the need to cut costs for democracy are the same people who wasted money demolishing a half-finished, world-class airport; built a useless train that has caused irreparable ecological damage in the Yucatán Peninsula; and squandered nearly $20 billion US dollars on an oil refinery that is completely unnecessary given the world’s idle crude-oil refining capacity. They were the same people who decided to save money when the pandemic hit, and because of those savings, Mexico had one of the highest COVID-19 mortality rates and one of the most severe economic contractions, all while López Obrador’s pharaonic projects continued full steam ahead. At some point, he even cynically affirmed that the pandemic was like anillo al dedo (translates into something like a “godsend”).
It should be noted that the projected reduction in fiscal resources for opposition parties, their campaigns, and the organization of elections will occur in parallel with changes in other legal provisions that will exempt the state oil and electricity companies as well as the armed forces from complying with transparency rules in public works contracting. One need not be a believer of conspiracy theories to be suspicious of what lies behind, on the one hand, of allocating fewer resources to the opposition parties and, on the other, creating a “big cash box” for the ruling party flowing from government contracts.
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum has so far kept her promise to continue her predecessor’s projects without deviation. There is no doubt that, in the most significant of these—the destruction of Mexican democracy—she deserves a “distinction” grade.
To be considered democratic, a nation must have the rule of law; free and competitive elections; the separation and balance of powers; an independent and professional judiciary; the guarantee and respect for civil rights and liberties; access to information and transparency, with effective accountability; and respect for political participation and representation, including that of minorities. All of this is being destroyed by the current government and its party. Without these essential components, there can be no talk of respect for popular sovereignty since this only exists in democracy. Therefore, when president Sheinbaum tells us that Mexico is about to become the most democratic country in the world with the abhorrent judicial election, she is ferociously lying to all Mexicans. Let us not be fooled: our young democracy has been murdered. ~
- This text is based on and updates the accusation I expressed in my remarks at the opening session of the International Bar Association’s annual conference on September 15, 2024, in Mexico City. ↩︎
