In Mexico, the outgoing president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, AMLO to his friends, will be replaced on the 1er October by her close ally Claudia Sheinbaum, elected president in June with more than 60% of the vote.
During his last month in power, AMLO intends to profoundly modify some of his country’s institutions. A flagship reform of a regime that wants to continue in the long term: the Chamber of Deputies adopted last week, by a qualified majority of two-thirds, the principle of electing federal judges by universal suffrage.
López Obrador was the great promoter of this constitutional revision, controversial and unique in the world. But the elected president, from the same party, Morena (National Regeneration Movement), and whom many present as a very faithful successor, assumed it and took it up as her own.
The opposition parties (including the PAN and the PRI — the Institutional Revolutionary Party, the de facto single party in Mexico until the 1990s, which today is struggling with 35 out of 500 deputies) voted unanimously against. But, all together, they do not have a third of the seats.
A sign of a difficult context: the vote was held in a public stadium, with access to the Chamber of Deputies blocked by demonstrators… Even in the minority (opposition parties represent 45%), liberal and libertarian voices fear for pluralism in this country where the outgoing president has centralized power and successfully maintained the cult of his personality.
There are still people against this cult, against these reforms: magistrates’ unions, the political opposition, a large part of the press, many law students. They consider this project as a threat to democracy and an open door to the corruption of judges.
Judges who will now have to hunt for votes to occupy their position… And go, for their financing, through the existing political networks, dominated by the Morena party. Ironically, the president presented the election of judges as a way, on the contrary, to reduce cases of corruption in the judicial system.
The reform still has to pass the Senate stage, where the friends of the regime do not quite have two-thirds. They will have to go and get two or three opposition senators.
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The vote took place in early September, and it is no coincidence. AMLO is determined to push through this constitutional change — and others — before he leaves office in three weeks.
Change presented in the form of a white paper at the beginning of the year, with other reforms… but which could not be passed earlier, due to lack of a supermajority.
Even though the outgoing president, after the election of June 2, is still in power until June 1er October, the new deputies, elected the same day, began their mandate on October 1er September. This gives an overlap of one month, during which the outgoing president coexists with the new Chamber.
A crucial detail, because the outgoing assembly, where AMLO and his allies held “only” 55% of the seats, would never have granted a qualified majority to this constitutional reform.
Of these 30 “blessed” days, López Obrador is taking full advantage to leave his mark on the institutions.
Hence this vote strategically placed at the beginning of September… allowing the participation of the new Morena deputies – which, with its allies, now controls more than 70% of the Chamber (with 55% of the vote, a turnout of 60%… and 25 candidates assassinated during the campaign).
There will be elections for all federal judgeships: Supreme Court, Judicial Council, Electoral Tribunal, district judges, etc.
Juicy and slightly baroque details: the presidency of the Supreme Court will be renewed every two years on a rotating basis, depending on the number of votes obtained by each candidate. In addition, the more votes you have, the longer you will be able to stay! Elected by a narrow margin… your term will be 8 years. But if you have an overwhelming majority, you will be able to stay 14 years on the Supreme Court!
Politicization of justice? AMLO’s desire to do away with the current Supreme Court, which has blocked or limited, in the last five years, many of his legislative projects (on the army, on the Electoral Tribunal)? Sign of an authoritarian turn? Of a new hegemonic party in the 21st centurye century, like the PRI of the 1930s-1990s?
All legitimate, these suspicions animate the demonstrators against the current reform. However, the approach to the appointment of judges – the current decadence of the Supreme Court of the United States is proof of this – is not in itself a guarantee of independence from the parties.
But the Mexican shift is radical and has no equivalent. There is Bolivia, where in 2009, under the presidency of Evo Morales, a system was established in which the 26 main judicial positions (Judicial Council, Constitutional Court, Agro-Environmental Court) are subject to elections.
And then there is the United States… Whose ambassador in Mexico, ironically, expressed, without discretion, concerns about this Mexican reform! The United States where, well, well… there is the election of judges. But only at the state level — and even then, not all of them (about thirty). No federal judge is elected.
Mexico is embarking on an unprecedented path, at a time when, there as elsewhere, democracy is faltering.
François Brousseau is an international news columnist at Ici Radio-Canada. [email protected]