INE councilors divided over judicial election

MEXICO CITY (apro) .- At the start of the General Council of the National Electoral Institute (INE), which will meet permanently on this day of judicial elections, two visions of the electoral process underway clashed: President Guadalupe Taddei Zavala and her group, identified with the ruling party, praised a "before and after" for Mexican democracy, while the councilors of the majority bloc pointed out with severe criticism the flaws of the electoral process.

One after another, each councilor offered their general interpretation of the judicial elections, a product of the reform to the Federal Judicial Branch promoted by former President Andrés Manuel López Obrador and approved by the Morena legislative majority.

Guadalupe Taddei had set the tone hours earlier during the flag-raising ceremony marking the start of election day: in her speech, she referred to the judicial election as a new democratic milestone for "modern democracies," and framed it within a historical process that dated back to ancient Greece and underwent the four "transformations" identified by López Obrador to define his political movement.

The president of the INE continued this enthusiasm during the General Council meeting: after praising the agency's work and affirming that it had overcome all the "unprecedented challenges" of the process, she celebrated that "Mexico has taken on the challenge of democratizing its justice system," as a "reflection of an evolving democracy."

Jorge Montaño, for whom today is a "fundamental day for democracy," in which Mexico "experiences a civic exercise of the utmost importance," in the vein of Benito Juárez and José María Pino Suárez; and Rita Bell López Vences, who asserted that this Sunday "marks a before and after in our democratic history," reflecting "a profound examination of democratic maturity." Norma Irene de la Cruz, another Guadalupe Taddei loyalist, emphasized the work of the citizens serving today as officials in the 84,000 polling stations set up across the country, including some in towns far from the INE district councils.

On the side of the critical councilors, Arturo Castillo lamented that the election was organized "in an extremely adverse context," "without the money required by this institution," "without time and in a complex political environment," under "adverse conditions caused by the three branches of the union," which resulted in 40% more positions up for renewal than in the 2024 elections, twice as many ballots, but less than half the number of polling stations, and that the counts will take up to 10 days to be released.

For all the above reasons, the counselor urged the three branches of government to not take constitutional reforms "lightly," "ignoring the expert opinion of those in charge of doing so," as these are decisions that "will affect the lives of more than 100 million Mexicans for decades." He therefore invited them to "re-evaluate the successes and failures of this reform and its implementation" after this Sunday.

Councilor Claudia Zavala, in a similar vein, noted that the constitutional reform was "quite vague, with gaps and inconsistencies," and had to be implemented "hastily," excluding Mexicans residing abroad, people with disabilities, or those in pretrial detention from the elections.

Zavala also criticized the "partisan actions of various power or interest groups that seek to use the law, the INE, and even the citizenry to induce predetermined majorities in order to impose integrations that suit their interests."

Jaime Rivera, for his part, lamented that the INE was forced to organize the elections "on the fly," creating rules and procedures that were "imperfect and highly questionable in several respects," such as the definition of territorial boundaries, the design of ballots, or the reduction in the number of voting booths. He therefore urged "constructive lessons" to be learned if the exercise were to be repeated, starting with "improving the selection of candidates based on professional capacity."

Rivera vehemently criticized the distribution of "accordions," which in his opinion reflected "an organized and massive political maneuver (that) has indelibly stained these elections," and opined that López Obrador's judicial reform was based more on an "ideological declaration"—that judges were following the interests of groups outside the people—than on a "legal argument."

Martin Faz estimated that the judicial reform placed the Mexican electoral system under "strong institutional strain," with two "serious obstacles" standing in the way: an "extremely limited timeframe" and the judicial suspensions that paralyzed the INE for two months. "It's not healthy for a functioning democracy to put its electoral system on the ropes," he added.

In a more measured tone, Councilor Dania Ravel listed the series of challenges and the seven months of "hard work" the INE faced in organizing the election, and celebrated that "this entire electoral process has been accompanied by multiple analyses, criticisms, questions, and even complaints," criticism that "we should be grateful for," she said.

In his midterm position, Councilor Uuc-kib Espadas recalled the "monumental budgetary obstacles, legislative gaps and errors that are no less significant, and political tensions," but maintained that "they have been successfully addressed and overcome by this institution," and promised that "we will once again deliver a clean election."