How a vote on nearly 2,700 judges could further help one party dominate Mexico

Boston Globe

5 days ago

Morena leaders said they decided on the election to fix a justice system rife with corrupt judges who served the elite, rather than everyone, and who kept frustrating the party's plans. In the process, they could eliminate the final major check on Morena's power.
Many legal and political analysts in Mexico expect candidates aligned with Morena to dominate the election, filling judgeships from local courthouses to the Supreme Court and giving the party effective control over the third branch of government.
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As a result, Mexicans face the paradox that giving more power to the public may undercut their democracy.
Predictions for Morena's success Sunday are driven by the unusual nature of the vote.
Just roughly 20 percent of voters are expected to cast ballots, electoral authorities say, in part because voters hardly know the candidates. Polling shows Morena is overwhelmingly popular and the opposition is frail. The government controlled the selection process for federal candidates, who are elected by voters nationally, and 19 of 32 states will also elect local candidates.
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Candidates are largely barred from traditional campaigning, a policy to try to level the playing field among candidates with different campaign funds. And political operatives have been accused of handing out cheat sheets, most of which recommend candidates with known ties to Morena.
'This is not an election -- this is an appointment by the Morena government that's going to be validated by a vote,' Carlos Heredia, a left-leaning political analyst, said this month. He previously advised Andrés Manuel López Obrador, the former Mexican president who founded Morena and signed the overhaul in his final days in office last year.
Andrés García Repper, a former Morena lawyer who helped select candidates and is now one himself, disputed that the new judges would be beholden to the government. But he said vigilance will be important. 'In no way is this a carte blanche,' he said this month. 'We must demand a lot and point out each and every irregularity.'
President Claudia Sheinbaum has called the election the most democratic way to fix widespread problems in the courts like corruption and nepotism, saying that the vote takes the power to pick judges from government bureaucrats and gives it to the public. 'Mexico will be a more democratic country on June 1,' she told reporters last week.
She has pointed out that she would have been able to appoint four Supreme Court justices during her six-year term. 'We are giving up that right,' she told supporters this month, 'because we want the people to choose, because that's what democracy is.'
Mexicans have long agreed that the justice system is broken. A broad history of impunity for the wealthy and powerful has led the public to largely give up on seeking justice; 92 percent of crimes go unreported in Mexico, a rate that has gone unchanged for a decade, according to an annual study.
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As a result, a poll of 1,000 Mexicans this month showed that 72 percent believed the election was 'necessary.' Yet, 77 percent couldn't name a single candidate.
In that atmosphere of uncertainty, Morena supporters have pushed the party's preferred candidates.
Over the past several weeks, there have been numerous news reports of Morena operatives distributing 'acordeones,' or cheat sheets that fold out like accordions with the candidates Morena wants elected. They are designed to be carried to the polls to help voters pick from a long, confusing ballot. One cheat sheet viewed by The New York Times simply lists the numbers assigned to candidates on the ballot, leaving out their names.
Sheinbaum has publicly criticized the cheat sheets, saying they are not an official party strategy. 'People have to decide,' she said this past week. 'I am not going to guide them to vote for one person or another.'
Sheinbaum has had to carry out the election since López Obrador, her political mentor, left office.
From the start of his presidency in 2018, López Obrador frequently called judges corrupt, but for years, he largely did not dispute their decisions.
Then, in 2023, the Supreme Court blocked some of his plans, including his efforts to weaken the nation's electoral watchdog and to put the National Guard under military control. Lower-court judges also issued orders suspending some of his flagship projects because of environmental concerns.
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He responded by vowing to replace the judges by popular vote.
His Morena party and allies won large majorities in Congress last year. And, in his final major act as president, López Obrador signed into law a slate of constitutional amendments that overhauled Mexico's judicial system.
Most judgeships became elected positions, the number of Supreme Court justices fell to nine from 11, and a new, so-called disciplinary court was created. That court will have broad powers to investigate and impeach judges, and its decisions will not be subject to appeal. Jurists worry that the vote Sunday will pack the disciplinary court with Morena loyalists who hold the rest of the judiciary to the party line.
Morena party officials have argued that while electing judges is not perfect, it is the best possible avenue to overhaul a judiciary that was not administering fair justice.
Many others in Mexico question whether there could have been a better process.
Lila Abed, a former Mexican government official who runs the Mexico Program at the Inter-American Dialogue in Washington, said the election would most likely usher in less qualified and potentially more compromised judges than the current system.
'Does the judiciary need reform? Yes,' she said. 'Is this the reform it needs? No.'
While the election could prevent many future clashes with the courts, political analysts still see it as a headache for Sheinbaum as she tries to navigate a precarious relationship with President Trump.
Some candidates have been accused of links to cartels, raising fears that the election could extend the cartels' influence over parts of the judiciary. The election has also injected uncertainty into the economy.
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Foreign companies, worried about who could soon be deciding their cases, have been rushing to settle litigation before new judges take office, said Gerardo Esquivel, an economist and former board member of Mexico's central bank who advises companies. 'Of the firms I speak to that are moving to Mexico, their main concern is the judicial reform,' he said.
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