Federico Reyes Heroles
Little Numbers That Reveal All.
Long months waiting for THE initiative, with capital letters, the one that will catapult Mexico into the firmament of real democracy, superior to the one we have. All political reforms are foundational agreements that are adapted over time, thereby strengthening their solidity. Only with this essential consensus do the players sit down at the table. We ask our interlocutor, what is the motivation? He is a former member of the Electoral Institution’s Board. The question is somewhat tricky, because many scholars—during this long gestation period—have asked ourselves the same thing. Who requested it, and for what purpose? No convincing answers have been found that demonstrate a truly democratic intention. Quite the contrary: it is a counter-reform that seeks to subdue the opposition and concentrate power.
In this predicament, the interviewee speaks of a drive against checks and balances and intermediary bodies. But what is clear is that they have lied to us with blatant arrogance, the product of their false belief in moral superiority. We have to save money. It sounds good, but behind it are the 332 billion pesos it cost to bury the New International Airport in Mexico City. The 409 billion pesos for the failed Insabi; the 360 billion pesos for the Dos Bocas refinery; the 500 billion pesos for the Mayan Train. The most recent news in this regard is that the much-talked-about Mayan Train and adjacent hotels lost almost 6.4 billion pesos in 2025. The “losses” from the Raffles “Tandas del Bienestar” and “Vaquitas del Bienestar” programs amount to 7.4 billion pesos.
Pemex had a loss of 780 billion pesos in 2025. The entire operation of the National Electoral Institute (INE) for the same period reached 14 billion. In other words, the losses of a company that, incidentally, should generate profits like its counterparts, would pay for half a century of the INE, 56 years. But let’s continue with the philosophy of “republican austerity.” As Pascal Beltrán del Río has explained, the Preliminary Electoral Results Program (PREP) is a key part of the electoral certainty we have achieved. The PREP cost 328 million pesos in 2024, meaning that Pemex’s daily losses are enough to pay for seven PREPs. It doesn’t make sense, or does it?
Money doesn’t matter; it’s a deception to confuse public opinion about the true intentions of the counter-reform. But, they argue, the INE must be slimmed down, and the public electoral bodies of each state (OPLE) and district boards must be eliminated, as they “duplicate” functions. It is clear that they have no idea of the delicate functions performed by both bodies. The first point in the PowerPoint presentation that purports to explain the main objectives of the counter-reform to the Republic—there are no ideas or principles—is the reduction of spending as the starting point. The quality of democracy is irrelevant; let’s throw out a percentage without measuring the consequences: lies and more lies. There is no longer a presidential plane, but the President and her team travel weekly on Mexican Air Force aircraft. The most worrying thing is that they think we Mexicans are idiots.
Dessert: the multi-district representatives, deputies, and senators. A deputy costs us less than one million pesos a year. A senator costs around 1.5 million pesos a year, multiplied by 12, around 30 million a month, for 132 legislators, which comes to 3.96 billion pesos. The losses from two days of Pemex operations pay for that.
Proportional representation—in force in around 130 countries—is the institutional means of correcting the distortion of majority representation and, in addition, allowing highly qualified professionals who would struggle to win a district to enter the legislative bodies.
Pluralistic debate is not only fairer, but it seeks to mirror what the public has expressed at the ballot box. Proportional representation raises the quality of the debate on the laws that govern a country of 130 million inhabitants. After the illegal and deceitful overrepresentation they imposed in 2024 and with this counter-reform project, they will go down in history as the great liars, the authoritarians without ethical limits, who did everything to control Mexico. The numbers expose them.
Time will tell.
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