Jorge Castañeda: No to an aberrant process

I already explained my reasons for not voting in the June 1st judicial elections a few weeks ago. But I'll clarify my reasons for abstaining again, adding a few more. The first, which I didn't mention before: it's evident that the country has entered a cycle of violence that won't end soon. The situation in Sinaloa confirms the prolongation, scope, and costs of the ongoing civil war in that state. Many more military personnel will be needed to restore order and the status quo ante, that is, the narco-pax. When that happens, the thousands of participants in the civil war will have to be prosecuted, tried, and convicted. Will the judges elected on June 1st be able to do so? I don't see how. I hope there are no more attacks like the one in Mexico City last Tuesday. But we shouldn't be surprised if similar events do occur again. Will the new judges have the capacity, honesty, and courage to handle them? I doubt it. Another new argument, which many have already mentioned: for Robert Lighthizer, the USMCA's purpose was to reduce the influence of international arbitration and the US judiciary in resolving disputes between US and Mexican investors, and between US investors and the Mexican state. Trump's representative demanded this in 2018 to discourage foreign investment in Mexico and attract greater investment to his country. Completely changing the selection rules, personnel, and structure of the judiciary in Mexico contributes to the same goal. If NAFTA primarily consisted of a "displacement" of the US rule of law to Mexico for foreign actors, the judicial reform cancels what remained of that intention. It will represent an obstacle to the arrival of private resources from abroad to our country. The additional reasons are well known. No other country, except Bolivia, proceeds this way. Judges elected by universal suffrage in our northern neighbor are elected only at the state level, not in all states, certainly not in the case of the Supreme Court, and in a system where, thanks to the existence of juries, judges wield less power than in Mexico. The ballots, the polling stations, the INE officials, the allocation of the electoral packets, and other details of the election itself are aberrant. Luis Carlos Ugalde has explained this clearly these days. Since I don't specialize in these matters, unlike him, I don't feel compelled to closely observe the process. Rather, I intend to distance myself as much as possible from it. Those who are going to vote should either get confused or study for many hours to understand how to do it. The fewer people who vote, the less legitimacy the process will have. Those who maintain that the reform is here to stay and that it's preferable to have more citizens endorse it, in order to improve it later, don't convince me. This is a deliberately rigged election so that voters mobilized by Morena will elect candidates they believe are appropriate, and other Mexicans won't have the slightest idea what to do. I don't see the logic in participating in this. Finally, the personalities. We already know there are some drug-related candidates on the ballot. Surely many more are there. But the mere possibility that someone like César Mario Gutiérrez Priego, son of the drug czar, defender of drug traffickers, and lying accuser of unimpeachable figures from distant history, might join the Supreme Court constitutes an additional reason not to vote. They'll tell me Lenia Batres isn't any better, but at least she doesn't belong to Mexico's narco-lawyer mafia. I'll be able to tell the three or four people still listening and who care about what I say that I had nothing to do with this farce. A consolation for fools, like the 3.5% tax on remittances instead of 5%. But it's what it is.—Mexico City. Email : [email protected] *Former Mexican Foreign Minister and political analyst