Nothing illegal in plan B; the Court will decide validity, highlights López Obrador

Nestor Jimenez and Arturo Sanchez Jimenez

Newspaper La Jornada
Saturday December 17, 2022, p. 3

After the approval of the reform of secondary laws on electoral matters by the Chamber of Deputies, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador pondered that it is an important advance and anticipated that goes to the Supreme Courtwhere its constitutionality will be defined.

When thanking the deputies of Morena and their allies in San Lázaro for endorsing the initiative, he maintained that Now it goes to the Supreme Court and there they will decide if it is unconstitutional or not. But there is absolutely nothing that alters the legal proceedings.

Consulted at his morning press conference on the approval of the legislation, the president defended that only in an authoritarian regime are there untouchables. In a democracy no one can be untouchable. Authoritarianism does state that the untouchable cannot be touched, but in a democracy it is the will of the people, and the people have the right at all times to change the form of their government, the people are sovereign, the people rule, the people decide.

When referring to the subject, but without delving into the so-called eternal life clause that allowed the transfer of votes between parties and whose discussion was postponed until February, the President reiterated that the legislation presents limitations due to the fact that the opposition parties rejected the constitutional reform initiative proposed by his administration.

“Now that this law has been approved, they begin to say: ‘Ah, but this is missing or it is wrong because it violates a constitutional principle.’ We are respectful of the rule of law. If we were like them, they would have approved the constitutional reform, it was a matter of doing the same as they did, negotiating in quotes, because politics is negotiation, but negotiation for them is delivering mocheprebends.”

He insisted that if it had been approved with this type of talks, “we would have achieved it with that, even with unanimity and applause, but no, that’s over. And, in any case, the law goes to the Judiciary, which did not happen before. And who is going to decide if the law is constitutional or not or if the law is unconstitutional? The Judiciary.

And we dominate the Judiciary, as it was before? No. When had this been seen?added López Obrador.

At the same time, he listed the key points that the constitutional reform proposal presented, and that could not be included in the reform of secondary laws endorsed in Congress: it was proposed to reduce the budget of the parties by half, or achieve savings for 15 billion pesos for the reduction of the electoral apparatus, with which, he said, more than 100 rehabilitation centers for people with disabilities could be built.

Nor was the elimination of the 200 multi-member deputies who are not elected by the people approved, If they were not part of the leadership of the parties, they were to buy consciences, loyalties, to have friends, relatives, and not really represent the people, but to be there as playboys. Well, we wanted to remove; it could not.

In addition, he regretted that among those who defended that the National Electoral Institute remain without modifications, there were people in good faith that allowed itself to be manipulated, since they put it into their heads that what their government was looking for was take possession of the electoral body, manage the electoral roll or even that he could be re-elected. Pure lies, because conservatives and hypocrites are very slanderous and false..