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Associated Press
12 hours ago
- Business
- Associated Press
Mexico's ruling party slated to control the newly elected Supreme Court, vote tallies show
MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexico's ruling Morena party is poised to control the country's Supreme Court, vote tallies of the country's first judicial election indicated Tuesday, inching the party closer toward a grip on all three branches of government. Votes were still being counted for the majority of the 2,600 federal, state and local judge positions up for grabs in Sunday's elections, but results neared completion for the nine Supreme Court positions. The majority of the newly elected justices share strong ties and ideological alignments with the ruling party, shifting a once fairly balanced high court into the hands of the very party that overhauled the judicial system to elect judges for the first time. Experts warned the shift would undercut checks and balances in the Latin American nation, and would offer President Claudia Sheinbaum and her party an easier path to push through their agenda. 'We're watching as power is falling almost entirely into the hands of one party,' said Georgina De la Fuente, election specialist with the Mexican consulting firm Strategia Electoral. 'There isn't any balance of power.' Despite that, officials have continued to fiercely reject democratic concerns. A Morena-leaning court and an Indigenous justice With more than 98% of votes counted Tuesday night, most of those slated to head Mexico's highest court were members or former members of the Morena party. A number of them who were Supreme Court justices prior to the election were appointed by former President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, Sheinbaum's mentor who pushed through the judicial overhaul last year. Others were advisers to the former president or the party or campaigned with politically aligned visions for the judiciary. Mexico's top electoral authority listed the nine likely winners in a press conference on Tuesday afternoon. Not all of the prospective winners were explicitly aligned with Morena. One standout was Hugo Aguilar Ortiz, an Indigenous lawyer from the southern state of Oaxaca. He has no clear party affiliation, though Sheinbaum said repeatedly she hoped to have an Indigenous judge on the court and said on Tuesday she was happy to see he would be. Political controversy Critics had feared that Morena would emerge from the election with control of the judiciary. The vote came after months of fierce debate, prompted when López Obrador and the party jammed through the reforms for judges to be elected instead of being appointed based on merits. The overhaul will notably limit the Supreme Court as a counterweight to the president. Judges, experts and the political opposition say the reform was an attempt to take advantage of high popularity levels to stack courts in favor of Morena. Sheinbaum and her mentor have insisted that electing judges will root out corruption in a system most Mexicans agree is broken. On Tuesday, Sheinbaum brushed off complaints by Mexico's opposition — which called for a boycott of the vote — that the Supreme Court was now unfairly stacked against them, saying 'they're the ones who decided not to participate in the election.' The elections were marred by low participation — about 13% — and confusion by voters who struggled to understand the new system, something opponents quickly latched onto as a failure. De la Fuente said Morena is likely to use its new lack of a counterweight in the high court to push through rounds of reforms, including reforms to Mexico's electoral systems, a proposal that has stirred controversy and was previously blocked by courts. Guadalupe Taddei Zavala, chief counselor of Mexico's electoral authority, on Tuesday rejected democratic concerns. 'I don't see any (constitutional) crisis after the election,' she said. Likely Supreme Court justices — Hugo Aguilar Ortiz was the big surprise from the election. The Indigenous lawyer led all vote-getters, including several sitting Supreme Court justices. He's known as a legal activist fighting for the rights of Indigenous Mexicans and has criticized corruption in the judiciary. — Lenia Batres was already a Supreme Court justice and was appointed by López Obrador. Previously a congresswoman, she's a member of Morena and an ally of Mexico's president. — Yasmín Esquivel is a Supreme Court justice who was appointed by López Obrador. She focused her campaign on modernizing the justice system and has pushed for gender equality. She was at the center of a 2022 controversy when she was accused of plagiarizing her thesis. She is considered an ally of the Morena party. — Loretta Ortiz is a justice on the Supreme Court who was appointed by López Obrador. She also served in Congress and resigned from Morena in 2018 in a show of independence as a judge. She's considered an ally of the party. — María Estela Ríos González is a lawyer who acted as legal adviser to López Obrador, first when he was mayor of Mexico City and later when he became president. She has a long history as a public servant and works in labor law and on a number of Indigenous issues. — Giovanni Figueroa Mejía is a lawyer from the Pacific coast state of Nayarit with a doctorate in constitutional law. He works as an academic at the Iberoamericana University in Mexico City. He's worked in human rights. While he holds no clear party affiliation, he supported the judicial overhaul, saying in an interview with his university that it 'was urgent and necessary in order to rebuild' the judiciary. — Irving Espinosa Betanzo is a magistrate on Mexico City's Supreme Court and has previously worked as a congressional adviser to Morena. He campaigned for the country's highest court on a platform of eliminating nepotism and corruption and pushing for human rights. — Arístides Rodrigo Guerrero García is a law professor pushing for social welfare with no experience as a judge, but who has worked as a public servant and has experience in both constitutional and parliamentary law. He gained traction in campaigns for a social media video of him claiming he's 'more prepared than a pork rind.' — Sara Irene Herrerías Guerra is a prosecutor specializing in human rights for Mexico's Attorney General's Office. She's worked on issues like gender equality, sexually transmitted infections and human trafficking. In 2023, she worked on the investigation of a fire in an immigration facility in the border city of Ciudad Juárez that killed 40 migrants.
New York Times
a day ago
- General
- New York Times
Mexico's Supreme Court Looks Set to Be Dominated by One Party
Mexico's governing Morena party looked poised to dominate the Supreme Court on Tuesday, moving closer to controlling the third branch of government, according to early results in the country's divisive, first-ever election to overhaul the courts at every level. At a news conference, the leader of the country's electoral authority, Guadalupe Taddei, said that over 90 percent of votes for court justices had been counted, and named the nine likely winners. In a sign of Morena's apparent success, the five women and four men projected to sit on the new Supreme Court were all named on lists distributed by Morena operatives and supporters to indicate to voters which candidates to choose. The nationwide elections on Sunday transformed the judiciary from an appointment-based system to one in which voters choose judges and magistrates — a hugely ambitious, far-reaching experiment by a large democracy. Morena leaders who pushed the overhaul into effect argue it will help root out corrupt officials, democratize the judiciary and begin to repair a justice system that most Mexicans see as unresponsive and broken. But opposition figures and legal experts criticized the plan, saying it discarded the career requirements of the old system and kept the door open for criminal groups to influence judges. Critics also argued that the reform could give Morena control over the judiciary, undermining the system of checks and balances. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
Bloomberg
3 days ago
- General
- Bloomberg
Mexico Elects Judges Among Scores of Little-Known Candidates
Mexican voters head to the polls on Sunday to begin picking judges in an unprecedented election that could give President Claudia Sheinbaum broad influence over a revamped judiciary, the only branch of government her party doesn't control. Polls open at 8 a.m. in Mexico City as voters pick a total of 881 federal judges, including all members of the Supreme Court. More than 3,000 little-known candidates are competing. Polls close at 6 p.m.
New York Times
5 days ago
- Entertainment
- New York Times
Judicial Candidates Try TikTok and Tinder in Mexico's Sprawling Elections
They weren't allowed to buy ads on television, radio, billboards or online. Mexico barred them from public funding or receiving campaign contributions. National debates were difficult, if not impossible, to mount. So people running to be judges across Mexico were largely left with social media. In one widely seen video, one Supreme Court candidate argued that he was as well seasoned as the fried pork sold on the streets. Another Supreme Court candidate styled herself Dora the Transformer, a spin on the cartoon character Dora the Explorer. Another Supreme Court candidate used dating apps so that, in his words, prospective voters could match with justice and then chat about the issues. The strict campaign limits, in contrast to traditional rules for presidential or congressional elections, are part of Mexico's sprawling, first-ever elections on Sunday. Voters will choose nearly 2,700 federal and state judicial positions at every level of the courts, with federal seats, like those on the Supreme Court, chosen at the national level and a host of officials elected locally. In other elections, political parties can finance their candidates' campaigns. But for these races, the governing party says it wanted to preserve some parity among candidates, and to limit outside influence on campaigns. So judicial aspirants have had to use their own money, with specified spending limits, leading to homemade, over-the-top and sometimes comical marketing efforts on social media to attract attention. 'We're not known people and we have to distinguish ourselves,' said Carlos Odriozola Mariscal, 54, a longtime lawyer who founded a human rights nonprofit and whose campaign for the Supreme Court began using dating apps to reach voters. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
Yahoo
23-05-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
🚨Paulinho ruled out for the first leg of the final
This article was translated into English by Artificial Intelligence. You can read the original version in 🇪🇸 here. Toluca will have a very significant loss for the Final. Less than an hour before the start of the first leg of the Grand Final, it was announced that the Devils will not be able to count on Paulinho According to some versions on social media, the star striker of Toluca would have been injured, which is why he didn't even make it to the bench at the Ciudad de los Deportes Stadium. Will the loss of the top scorer weigh heavily? 📸 JULIO CESAR AGUILAR - AFP or licensors
