After 65 consultation forums and more than 5,200 participation interventions, the presidential commission for electoral reform has begun the final stretch of its work. Pablo Gómez, executive president of the said commission, told the president of the National Electoral Institute, Guadalupe Taddei, on Monday that the initiative would be sent to Congress on February 1, just at the start of the regular period of sessions.
The Commission’s proposal will be finalized in the coming weeks with information provided by the INE and the Local Public Electoral Bodies (OPLE), and more than 350 proposals made by specialists and organizations during the consultation forums organized by the commission between September and December. Once Pablo Gómez presents the proposal, the Legal Department of the Presidency will be responsible for translating it into a reform initiative that will be signed by President Claudia Sheinbaum.
Guadalupe Taddei went this Monday to the offices of the Presidential Commission accompanied by 27 presidents of OPLE, who have started a crusade since October to avoid the extinction announced by Pablo Gómez at the start of the work.
Taddei herself, who before leading the INE chaired the OPLE of Sonora, defended the work of local institutes and warned of the operational risks that arise when they disappear. “We cannot leave aside their experience and operational capacity,” he declared before Rosa Icela Rodríguez, Secretary of the Interior, during the public hearing held in Hermosillo on October 8, which he attended in his personal capacity.
On the other hand, Pablo Gómez emphasized, at the start of his new mission, that the OPLE and the State Electoral Courts duplicate work and have no reason to exist. “The disappearance of the OPLE is very obvious, no one can say what they are for. The state courts do not resolve any cases, everything goes to the Electoral Court. Better to make a two-speed system,” he said in August in an interview with EL PAÍS.
This position, according to the authorities of the INE and the advisors of several OPLEs, is increasingly nuanced within the Government and the Commission itself, which includes, in addition to Gómez, José Merino, director of the Digital Transformation Agency; Lázaro Cárdenas Batel, head of the Office of the President; Arturo Zaldívar, coordinator of Politics and Government; Jesús Ramírez, coordinator of advisors, and the Secretary of the Interior, Rosa Icela Rodríguez.
“The OPLEs have already been saved,” said one of the participants in this Monday’s meeting, who assures that Pablo Gómez is no longer so critical of local organizations after 65 forums and two months of debates in which Morena’s own governors defended the existence of the bodies responsible for local electoral processes.
Pablo Gómez, author of the electoral reform initiatives presented by former President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, known as Plan A, B and C, justified his rejection of OPLE by the cost they imply for state governments: more than 13 billion pesos every year, in addition to the budget received by the INE. However, experts and authorities have warned of the danger of their disappearance in 2027, when federal elections for deputies coincide with gubernatorial elections in 17 states and with local elections to Congress and municipal councils in 30 states. Furthermore, if judicial reform is maintained on the terms in which it was approved, by 2027 half of the circuit and district courts not elected this year and local judges in a dozen states will be elected.
If it is mainly planned to move the process of revocation of the mandate from April 2028 to June 2027, as proposed by the federal deputies of Morena close to President Sheinbaum, the mid-term elections will involve an insurmountable logistical challenge without the OPLE.
In addition to the future of OPLE, President Sheinbaum’s reform will determine the future of proportional representation legislators and a probable reduction in public funding that political parties receive each year, issues on which Morena’s allied parties (Greens and PT) have expressed their rejection.
The commission collects the latest proposals
Taddei said Monday that she had only served as a bridge to transmit to the presidential commission the diagnoses and proposals of associations of electoral authorities, civil organizations and local parties, which seek to “strengthen democracy and electoral federalism.” And he echoed a suggestion from Pablo Gómez, according to which anyone interested in sending a proposal would do so on the platform opened for this purpose on the presidential commission page (reformaelectoral.gob.mx).
Last week, Taddei tried unsuccessfully to reach consensus on a proposal from the 11 INE advisors, but a preview of the said document was leaked with preliminary proposals, which sparked protests from the advisors who were not consulted in its preparation and forced Taddei to postpone the delivery until January 12. This document would be the last contribution of the Presidential Commission in the final phase, before the initiative of President Claudia Sheinbaum is drafted.
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