Mexico's young democracy teeters on the edge of a cliff
Twice in recent months, first on Nov. 13 and then Feb. 26, tens of thousands of Mexicans took to the streets to protest a new law that will gut the nation’s autonomous electoral authority. Their cries of distress should be heard widely — and heeded. The electoral law, championed by President Andrés Manuel López Obrador and signed by him in recent days, is a knife stabbing at the heart of Mexico’s democracy.
“Don’t touch our vote!” the demonstrators chanted in Mexico City’s Zócalo, the vast square in front of the presidential palace, many wearing shirts and baseball caps in pink, the color of the National Electoral Institute, or INE, that would be sundered by the new law. “We’re not ready to lose our democracy,” Óscar Casanova, a businessman, told The Post’s Mary Beth Sheridan.
For seven decades, Mexico was ruled by a single party, the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, which lost the presidential contest in 2000, opening the way to a period of multiparty competition. The National Electoral Institute has played a key role in this transition as an independent, nonpartisan authority, deploying thousands of workers who issue voter IDs and control virtually all aspects of state and federal balloting. The new law would emasculate the INE, requiring it to close 40 offices around the country and sharply reduce its staff and resources. It would also weaken the agency’s enforcement mechanisms, limiting its ability to sanction candidates for severe offenses.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/03/07/mexico-democracy-protestst-lopez-obrador-amlo/
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