Legislators sworn into the 61st Jalisco State Congress last weekend underscored their commitment to opening avenues for greater citizen participation in the lawmaking process.
At the November 1 opening session, legislators from the seven political parties represented in the 39-member Congress – as well as 27-year-old independent Pedro Kumamoto – touched on the need to find better ways of engaging with constituents and building public trust.
Jalisco Governor Aristoteles Sandoval announced that he would shortly present a bill, the Ley de Participación Ciudadana, that could provide funds to support citizen initiatives and include the option of plebiscites and referendums in certain areas of the legislative agenda. The initiative is one of 33 the governor said that he intends to send to Congress.
Making his initial intervention in the chamber, Kumamoto said the fact that voters had elected an independent candidate to Congress for the first time sent “a clear message” that citizens still maintained faith that (Congress) could work in their interests. He vowed to work with “one foot in Congress and the other on the street” and confront “partidocracia,” a word in Spanish that roughly translates as the practice of political parties acting only among themselves, and being out of touch with the public.
The 61st Jalisco Legislature comprises 14 representatives from the Citizen’s Movement (MC), 13 from the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), five from the National Action Party (PAN), three from the Green Party (PVEM), two from the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD), one from the New Alliance Party (PANAL) and one independent legislator (Pedro Kumamoto). The legislature is made up of 24 men and 15 women.
Kumamoto can expect his performance to be carefully monitored by the media and the general public eager to see if an independent candidate with relatively no political experience can leave a mark on an institution that for decades has been run akin to a private club, replenished every three years with similar faces that have “done the rounds” of municipal, state and federal government bodies.
Political analyst Diego Petersen, writing in Guadalajara daily El Informador, suggests that citizens should not expect a slew of initiatives from Kumamoto. What is more important, he says, is that he doesn’t fall into the practice of getting involved in “shady backroom deals,” and that he acts as a conduit with citizenry to clarify the processes behind lawmakers’ decision making.
During his intervention at the first session, former Tlajomulco Mayor Isamel del Toro, leader of the MC faction, urged his fellow members to “clean up” the image of a Congress that has been “infected to the bones by corruption and impunity.”