Ricardo Pascoe Pierce
The fight that Morena has unleashed to have a qualified majority in the federal Congress and the Mexico City Congress speaks of recklessness in the administration of its overwhelming electoral victory. From that resounding victory, Morena is now moving quickly to the snatch. It wants…no, it demands more than what it obtained at the polls to impose itself in an authoritarian manner on minorities so that they disappear forever from national life.
From a resounding victory, Morena moves immediately to imposition. It is no accident that it has proposed to approve all measures of López Obrador’s plan “C” in the dangerous month of September. This plan contains all the ingredients of the constitutional regime change offered by the 4T to the country.
For September, he proposes a judicial reform to elect judges, magistrates, and the Supreme Court of Justice ministers by popular vote, returning to prehistory. He also offers a political reform to eliminate plurinominal representatives, returning Mexico to the times of Diaz Ordaz. He wants to eliminate the National Electoral Institute (INE) and replace it with an electoral body controlled by the Department of the Interior, as in the times of the old PRI. He proposes more militarization by incorporating the National Guard into SEDENA and less oversight by disappearing autonomous bodies such as INAI, IFT, CRE, and CNH.
Morena’s obstacle is that it has not achieved the necessary seats to have the qualified majority to approve these changes. Therefore, it is demanding that the electoral bodies approve a frankly illegal method to grant Morena that legislative majority it did not legally obtain.
The legal resolution of the confrontation over the interpretation of the granting of plurinominales will be decisive in defining the future of Claudia Sheinbaum’s government. If she manages to force the jurisdictional bodies to endorse her illegal interpretation of the procedure to grant plurinominales in excess to Morena and allies, she will have started her administration by committing a mega-fraud against legality, democracy, and freedom.
It will also be a sign that López Obrador continues, and will continue, to decide on the destinies of the federal government. Sheinbaum will remain a First Magistrate subordinated to the true leader of the movement that brought her to the Presidency. She will never be a full-fledged ruler if she ascends to the Presidency of Mexico by cheating to achieve an illegal legislative majority.
Sheinbaum has suffered several humiliations during the electoral process. Her own fellow movement members have caused all of her humiliations, the President included. First, the President imposed his campaign agenda on her when, at the beginning of the year, he announced Plan “C”. Second, she could not impose her candidate for the Mayor’s office, and a radical movement against her grew in Mexico City. She will face resistance from the city, which originates from her own movement. Even more dangerous, this resistance in the capital could be AMLO’s instrument to correct Sheinbaum whenever the former President feels that the President is straying from the “path chosen” by him.
The most recent episode occurred when the Morenista legislators expressed their intention to approve Plan “C” fast-track in September, much to the delight of López Obrador. Before that announcement, the markets trembled, and the peso devalued. Sheinbaum came out to reassure the markets, saying nothing had been decided. The next day, AMLO corrected Sheinbaum, announcing that justice is more important than the markets and that the reform is on its way. Another humiliation for Sheinbaum.
Now, we are facing the war of the plurinominals and the real possibility of the overrepresentation of the Morenista bloc in Congress. An overrepresentation that would give Morena the option to annul the Constitution and draft a new one according to its interests and ideological criteria.
As for everything Morena does, it would not be by convincing its opponents but by imposition.
The most serious of all is that Morena’s arrogance in the face of its electoral victory leads it, as we are seeing, to acts of imprudence that endanger the political and economic stability of the country.
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