(Bloomberg) — Outgoing President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador is poised to seize control of the one branch of government he still lacks in Mexico, cementing his Morena party’s dominance for years to come. Such unchecked power would pose significant political and economic risks for a country that spent most of the 20th century under authoritarian rule.
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The ruling party and its allies need just one more vote in the coming days to completely overhaul Mexico’s judicial system, likely subjugating an institution that has repeatedly blocked Lopez Obrador’s reforms. Their success, which began with a landslide victory for the president’s protégé, Claudia Sheinbaum, and continued with the securing of large majorities in both houses of Congress, poses a risk to “good governance,” said Jeffrey Weldon, a political science professor at Mexico’s Autonomous Institute of Technology.
“Mexico had decades of authoritarian rule with this kind of one-party control,” he said. “The economic and social results of those years are not considered good.”
A court that sets no limits on a president threatens the basic principles of democracy, critics say. It also creates uncertainty for investors after a six-year regime that has not been friendly to business. The peso collapsed within hours of Morena’s landslide victory in June, with traders expecting the party to attempt to seize full control of the government. The peso has continued to fall since then, hitting its lowest level since late 2022 and becoming by far the worst-performing emerging-market currency in the world over that period.
It’s a sharp reversal for a currency that has become known as the “super peso” in recent years — and analysts say there’s more to come. Marco Oviedo, a strategist at XP Investimentos in Brazil, said the peso is likely to top 20 to the dollar this week, from 19.82 now, if the reform is approved. He expects the year to end around 20.50, compared with levels around 17 to the dollar just before the election.
Changing the rules for selecting judges is a strategy often used by leaders seeking to consolidate their power. Recent examples include the overhauls of the courts in Bolivia, Venezuela and Hungary. But in many ways, Mexico’s reform goes even further.
The proposal submitted to Congress involves replacing the current judges of the country’s Supreme Court and Federal Court with elected judges over the next three years. It is likely that many, if not most, of the more than 1,600 judges will come from Morena, as the party enjoys more support than ever.
“This is quite a revolution,” said Oviedo, who previously served as an adviser to former President Felipe Calderon. “It’s a regime change and nothing is going to stop it now.”
AMLO’s lawsuits
AMLO, as the current president is known, has long had a troubled relationship with the Mexican courts.
When he claimed election fraud during his 2006 and 2012 presidential campaigns, the Electoral Court rejected his appeals. During his presidency, the Supreme Court blocked some of his most controversial moves, including a reform of the Electoral Institute and a reorganization that placed the National Guard under the control of the Department of Defense.
One of the biggest blows came earlier this year, when the Supreme Court blocked AMLO’s nationalist electricity law, which prioritized the use of power from Mexico’s struggling state-owned utility over energy produced by private renewable companies. Days later, he proposed a package of constitutional reforms that included the Supreme Court changes.
“Right now, the executive branch also controls the legislative branch,” said Judge Juana Fuentes Velazquez, head of JUFED, one of Mexico’s main associations of legal workers that is leading nationwide strikes against the reform. “If we elect judges through a popular vote, we will have a majority of judges from the ruling party, which would become absolute power.”
AMLO’s main criticism of the judiciary is that its judges are controlled by sectors with economic power, whether they are businessmen or organized crime groups. AMLO recently said that Supreme Court Justice Norma Piña should be impeached for accepting challenges from Mexican billionaire Ricardo Salinas’ Grupo Elektra in an attempt to evade taxes.
Days after his party’s victory in June, AMLO announced he would reform the courts, a move his lawmakers say could happen before his term ends on the last day of September.
“We are going to resort to the democratic method, so that the people decide, the sovereign people, so that the judges act as servants of the government, and not at the service of a minority or an economic-financial consortium,” he said.
In addition to electing judges by popular vote, AMLO’s proposal would reduce the number of Supreme Court justices from 11 to 9 and shorten their terms from 15 to 12 years. In his years-long battle with the judges, the president has always complained that they earn more than he does, so he has proposed that their salaries should not be higher than the president’s salary.
He also wants to abolish the requirement that judges be at least 35 years old and halve the number of required years of experience in the judiciary from 10 to 5.
U.S. Ambassador to Mexico Ken Salazar said relaxing the qualifications and experience requirements “could also make it easier for cartels and other bad actors to take advantage of politically motivated and inexperienced judges.”
Sheinbaum has said the government will act responsibly in passing the reform, but she has also stressed that the reform will be passed because it is a popular mandate.
“What we want is for there to be democracy in the judiciary as well,” she said in a video posted Thursday on X. “Of course, those who should be selected are those who have a good public reputation, who are honest and who have the knowledge to be a judge.”
Consolidation of power
AMLO’s proposal was partly inspired by Bolivia’s efforts to reform its courts. Other countries have had similar experiences:
Choosing Supreme Court justices by popular vote is a high-stakes gamble, said Gustavo Flores-Macias, a professor of government and public policy at Cornell University. While justices can make decisions they see as more closely in the interests of voters, they can also be far more vulnerable to political pressure from other branches of government.
“In Bolivia, where Supreme Court justices are also elected, the legislature screens candidates to generate a subset of candidates that voters can choose,” he said. “This step weeds out inexperienced candidates, but it also lends itself to the selection of finalists that political parties approve.”
Under the latest version of AMLO’s proposal, about half of Mexico’s federal judges would be elected by popular vote in 2025, including Supreme Court justices. The rest would be elected in 2027, when Electoral Court judges are elected.
Supreme Court justices would be given the option to resign before the election of new justices or run for their seats. The former option would allow them to retain their full pension, while the latter would not.
Flores-Macias stressed that neither appointed nor elected judges are a panacea for the Mexican judiciary, as corruption and politicization of judicial decisions can be present in both systems.
“The Mexican justice system is known for widespread corruption resulting in general impunity, so it is hardly an example for the rest of the world.”
–With assistance from Michael O’Boyle.
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