Morena takes out the magnifying glass (and the scalpel) to operate the electoral system
It seems that in Morena they have the renewing spirit of someone doing spring cleaning, but applied to the Constitution. Ricardo Monreal Ávila, the coordinator of the bench in San Lázaro, released the political gossip of the week: the party in power is analyzing an electoral reform that, basically, wants to give a complete *makeover* to how the political class is elected. And yes, things are serious: from reducing the multi-member deputies (those who arrive by list, without winning a direct election) to rethinking how the General Council of the INE is chosen. It sounds like they want to change the rules in the middle of the game, but with the calm of someone having a coffee.
In an interview he gave in the Legislative Palace, Monreal painted a panorama where the central axis is, let’s say, “slimming” the proportional representation in the Congress of the Union. Translation: fewer seats assigned by mathematical calculations of votes and, in theory, a savings in the budget. Because of course, they are also reviewing the public money that is allocated to campaigns and the prerogatives of the parties. Nothing like an economic crisis to make us all want to cut expenses, even electoral expenses.
The INE and the parties: new rules of the game?
But the jewel in the crown of this possible reform is in the electoral body. Monreal dropped that they are weighing two options to integrate the General Council of the INE: that citizens elect them directly (a kind of *political talent show*) or a method of mandatory insaculation (drawing names from a raffle, but with more formality). Whatever the option, the message is clear: they seek a comprehensive transformation of the Mexican electoral system.
And if that were not enough, they are also putting on the table the periodicity to create new political partiespopular consultations so that they do not clash with the elections, because apparently, the political calendar is already as saturated as our social media notifications.
In summary, what we have here is a draft of changes that strikes a chord with representative democracy. Reducing the figure of the multi-member representative, modifying the leadership of the National Electoral Institute and adjusting the pace of party creation are not cosmetic changes. They are a reengineering of power. Morena, with its majority in Congress, seems to have the key to promoting this agenda, but the debate promises to be as intense as the comments in a controversial tweet. The question that hangs in the air is whether this will strengthen democracy or simply rearrange the pieces in favor of whoever governs today.
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