Proposals by Andrés Manuel López Obrador to overhaul the nation’s electoral and political systems represent a threat to democracy in Mexico, critics say, although the nation’s president insists their main aim is to avoid fraud in forthcoming elections and save money.
The reforms would downsize the National Electoral Institute (INE), make all posts in electoral institutions subject to popular vote, cut public funds and media time for political parties and eliminate 200 of the 500 seats in the lower house of Congress.
Lopez Obrador has brushed aside accusations that he is trying to wrest control of the independent electoral institutions and return the nation to the dark days of the past when the ruling party (then the Partido Revolucionario Institutional or PRI) supervised elections, allowing it to fix the results at its will.
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