Adam Augusto’s bluff

“We trust that there will be a constitutional reform in electoral matters very soon, towards the end of the year,” said Adán Augusto López, Secretary of the Interior. In his recent tour of the states to promote the ratification of the constitutional changes that expand the participation of the Armed Forces in security tasks, he took the opportunity to make statements about the electoral reform.

He spoke of a “working group” with the PRI and “some PAN members” to move it forward. He clarified that “there are about 40 more initiatives presented by parliamentary groups,” but the basis will be that of President López Obrador, sent to the Chamber of Deputies last April.

Apparently, Adán Augusto López was referring to the Political-Electoral Reform Commission of the Chamber of Deputies, installed since October 2021. It was in charge of organizing the Open Parliament forums on Electoral Reform, in which the deputies of the coalition Va por México did not participate. PAN, PRI and PRD denounced the forums organized by the official majority as a simulation. Therefore, they made their own forums in parallel.

Despite this, the Political-Electoral Reform Commission has continued with its work. Recently, on October 25, they had a joint meeting with the Constitutional Points Commission and the Governance and Population Commission. The purpose was to raise the profile of legislative work and launch the analysis of initiatives in electoral matters. The coordinators of the parliamentary groups attended and all expressed their good intentions.

However, the political conditions for an agreement on electoral reform are conspicuous by their absence. The initiative presented by President López Obrador is infumable for locals and strangers. He punishes everyone, including the PT and the Green Party, Morena’s allies. Of course, the absolute losers would be the opposition parties.

President López Obrador proposes to reduce the public financing of the parties to less than a quarter of what they currently receive. Of course, when you’re in power you don’t need it, you have your cadres holding public office and doing partisan work. If you have the government, the money under the table flows without obstacles, as we saw in the recall referendum.

He also wants to take away from political parties more than a third of their radio and TV time during campaigns. They would return to the hands of the Ministry of the Interior. Instead of electoral campaigns, we would have more propaganda in favor of the government and, tacitly, of his party.

At the same time, it seeks to reduce spaces for political representation and deliberation. It proposes to eliminate 200 seats from the Chamber of Deputies and 32 from the Senate. Likewise, it proposes to reduce the size of the state legislatures and the councils of the city councils.

President López Obrador’s initiative seems to be inspired by the Porfirian motto of “little politics and a lot of administration.” He wants a big government and a small opposition, the recipe for the concentration of power that, as the hegemonic party, the PRI applied for decades.

The Secretary of the Interior knows that President López Obrador’s initiative cannot be the basis for a consensus reform. For the PRI, the hinge party in any constitutional change, it is equivalent to laying down arms and unconditionally surrendering to the 4T. For this reason, Rubén Moreira, the coordinator of the PRI in San Lázaro, has made it public that his party “maintains the position that an electoral reform is not necessary.”

Despite this, Adam Augustus encourages expectations of imminent constitutional change. He appears to bring a strong winning hand in this game. However, if we count the cards right, everything indicates that he is bluffing.

*Professor at CIDE.

@BenitoNacif