Cuts to the INE have reduced the scope of strategic projects

The cuts made by the Congress of the Union to the proposals presented by the National Electoral Institute (INE), during the last four years forced the body to make adjustments mainly in investments in projects considered strategic, such as the one dedicated to strengthening administrative management and evaluation and culture of public service and the one destined to strengthen equity and legality in the party system. politicians.

In the first case, during the current year, 2022, the cut was 62.39%, in 2021 68.5%, in 2020 53.49% and in 2019 9.5 percent.

In absolute terms in 2022 the cut was 294 million 702,756 pesos; in 2021 it was 294 million 702,756; in 2020 of 238 million, 833,815 pesos and in 2019 of 13 million 416,857.

According to “INE Strategic Plan 2016-2026”, the plan to strengthen the management and administrative evaluation and culture of public service is one of the seven strategic projects of the organization and whose objective is to support the fulfillment of the mission and institutional objectives.

“With the relevant information obtained from the evaluation, the development of institutional modernization can be strengthened, since it will gradually provide elements for the implementation of technological tools that favor the automation of processes, sub-processes, procedures and activities, allowing cost reduction. and the achievement of higher levels of efficiency in the operation”, says the document; however, during the last four years adjustments had to be made because between 2019 and 2022 they took away 841 million 656,184 pesos. The biggest cut was made in 2021, when the removal was 68.5%.

In the case of the item “Strengthening equity and legality in the political party system”, it has only had cuts in 2019, when the decrease was 8.51% and in absolute terms it meant five million 172,845 and in 2020, when the reduction was 69.15%, meant 300 million pesos.

According to the documents that govern the actions of the INE, the money used in this area is intended to guide the optimization of existing institutional mechanisms to guarantee legality and fairness in the electoral contest, specifically with regard to that concerns the political actors that compete for the citizen vote.

They even point out that the institutional activities related to granting these organizations access to public financing, distributing the time on radio and television to which they are entitled and the other prerogatives that the law grants them are essential for the strengthening of the party system in Mexico. , as well as control the use of these resources.

Another area that has been most affected by the reduction in spending is Strengthening the Mechanisms for Updating Registry Processes and has to do with the integrity of the Federal Voter Registry. The General Policy and the Strategic Project that derive from this task are mainly oriented towards improving the operational registry processes, with the purpose of guaranteeing the validity and reliability of its products: the Electoral Register, the Voters’ Nominal List, the Credential to Vote and Electoral Cartography.

It includes the projects, programs and activities that favor the permanent updating of the registration processes as a basis of confidence in the inputs that they contribute to the Mexican electoral system.

It is in this area where the introduction of information and communication technologies is contemplated as a fundamental tool to make registration processes more efficient.

The fact is that in 2019 it had a budget reduction of 36 million 860,116 pesos, which represented 20.06% of its original proposal, and in 2020 of 62 million 360,409 pesos, that is, 69.15% less than what it had initially programmed.

The main mission of the INE authority is to organize electoral processes. In this item, the largest adjustment made between 2019 and 2022 was in the one that occurred in 2020 and was 13.45 percent. In 2019 the reduction was 5.15%, in 2021 it was 3.76% and this year there were no adjustments.

The institute’s budget is divided into two areas: the base budget and the budget for the institutional portfolio of projects. Most of the adjustments occur in the latter and it is precisely where the agency’s actions are, such as the organization of electoral processes and actions to strengthen strategic areas.

The reductions in the base budget have been in the range of 1.36% and 8.25%, while the reductions in the institutional portfolio of projects have been in the range of 2.38% and 32.24%, this last amount was that of 2020.

If the annual global accounts of the INE are observed, the largest reduction occurred in 2022 when the decrease was 26.09% and the smallest was last year when it was 4.25 percent.

For 2023, the INE sent to the Congress of the Union a budget proposal of 14,437 million 935,663 pesos, but until Friday morning the intention was maintained to cut 4,475 million 201,178 pesos.

In addition, the INE requested a precautionary budget for the eventual organization of a Popular Consultation with an amount of 4,025 million 422,288 pesos, which, in the event that the legal term of November 30 expires without this exercise being convened, would be returned in full. and immediately to the Federation Treasury.

For the basic and permanent operation of the Institute, 11,769.76 million pesos were requested and for the Institutional Project Portfolio, which includes the Local Electoral Processes of the State of Mexico and Coahuila, as well as the beginning of the Federal Electoral Process (PEF) 2023-2024 y Strategic Projectsthe INE will request 2,669.88 million pesos.

INE plans to promote constitutional controversy by cutting

Beatriz Claudia Zavala Pérez, counselor and president of the Institute’s 2023 Temporary Budget Commission (CTP), said that despite the cuts, the INE has continued to comply with all lines of action, although the scope of the projects has been reduced.

In this sense, he emphasized that it is worrisome that Congress makes these cuts without addressing the arguments presented by the institute.

In an interview, he stressed that everything that was presented in the proposal is aligned with the constitutional duties of the body, in addition to the fact that these are actions that are intended to guarantee the exercise of the political-electoral rights of Mexicans.

He said that it is worrying that such a significant amount of resources is removed (like no other autonomous body whose budget was also reduced) because it is willing to make the enjoyment of rights effective.

The counselor, who spoke with The Economist On Friday morning, he said that if the INE materializes, it will again go to the judiciary to file a constitutional controversy because the organization cannot be each year with budgetary uncertainty as in recent years.

It must be clear that in order to fulfill its constitutional mission, the corresponding budgetary resource must be guaranteed.

Currently there are constitutional controversies filed by the INE that have not been fully resolved.

He stressed that the power of the Legislative power has to be motivated in a reinforced way when it decides not to grant the budgetary sufficiency requested by an autonomous body such as the INE and it has to do with the need to present valid reasons within the constitutional framework to be able to reduce an amount because otherwise, as the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation has already expressed, it will be understood as a power exercised to subordinate a body even when it has the autonomy that the Constitution confers on it.

The counselor commented that due to the budget adjustments that they were forced to make at the institute in 2022 given that last year Congress did not authorize the requested resources, a legal model had to be changed to carry out the exercise of revocation of mandate (last April 10, where only less than 18% of the population participated) due to insufficient budget, “which is extremely dangerous, because the law is designed to be complied with.” “Things like that should not happen in a constitutional rule of law,” she emphasized.

diego.badillo@eleconomista.mx