Fabiola Martinez
La Jornada Newspaper
Sunday, January 18, 2026, p. 4
Almost a quarter of the proposals of the National Electoral Institute (INE) for reform in the matter have to do with surveillance of parties and strengthening oversight in operational and financial terms; However, it does not support the idea of reducing funding to these groups.
In the document delivered to the Presidential Commission for Electoral Reform, responsible for coordinating constitutional and legal changes, the institute considers that reducing these prerogatives “does not solve a real spending problem.”
In exchange, he proposes linking public financing to “citizen discontent”, that is, validating abstention and null votes for this purpose, “instead of putting the existence of minority parties or the quality of the elections at risk.”
On page 19 of the arbitrator’s compendium it reads: “Sufficient public financing for political parties and electoral authorities. It is essential for the survival of the smallest parties and for organizing comprehensive and accessible elections.”
He argues that these prerogatives (7,737 million pesos for the current year) represent 0.08 percent of the Expenditure Budget of the Federation (8 cents of every 100 pesos).
This fund, to be distributed among six parties, includes resources for ordinary expenses, specific activities and even a subsidy for postal and telegraphic franchises.
The INE proposes to review the formula established in the Constitution to set the money that will be given to the parties, but not to lower support, but rather looking for ways to measure their performance and citizen discontent, but “guaranteeing its sufficiency to maintain pluralism, under criteria of budgetary rationality, transparency and effective oversight.”
They only suggest removing what is related to the telegraphic franchise, today obsolete due to technological evolution, although they fail to point out that today the general expense for this concept is barely 57 thousand pesos for each match.
Currently, financing is calculated based on an equal distribution of 30 percent of the available resource and the rest proportionally according to the vote obtained in the most recent federal election. It is based on the value of the Unit of Measurement and Update and on the size of the electoral roll, which is why this amount never decreases, on the contrary.
The INE states in the document that “ordinary public financing is essential to maintain the permanent activities of the parties and to be able to comply with the constitutional mandate of promoting the participation of the people in democratic life, promoting the principle of gender parity, contributing to the integration of political representation bodies and making possible the access of citizens to the exercise of public power.”
On the contrary, the institute proposes opening avenues for contributions to different electronic means, “as long as the resource flows are clearly traceable and the contributors are verifiable, as well as the origin and amount of the resources contributed.”
He emphasizes that public financing must continue to be the predominant income for parties.
