Constitutional moratorium: the position of the opposition to block reforms

The objective of the moratorium is simple, according to Senator Azul Rementería “to protect democracy and send to the dustbin of history occurrences of Bolivarian constitutional reforms” that the president has proposed.

However, the PAN will discuss whether the moratorium is an appropriate strategy until Monday, June 27, at a meeting of its National Permanent Commission, a body that brings together legislators and Blue and White management bodies.

How did AMLO react to the moratorium?

The next day, at a conference in Huatulco, Oaxaca, President López Obrador did not express any surprise and minimized the opposition plan since his main proposals for constitutional reform had already been finalized.

“There is nothing new, it is what they have done. They do not propose anything, they do not help, they are dedicated to getting in the way. He who does not get in the way helps a lot, ”she criticized.

Five days after the announcement, on Monday the 13th, he added: “if they are not going to legislate, just do not charge, ask for a license because they are declaring that they are not going to approve anything.”

Aren’t they going to get paid? Will there be legislative paralysis?

The leader of the PRI deputies, Rubén Moreira, explained that those who have functions in Congress like him, who is president of the Political Coordination Board (Jucopo), will exercise them, so the moratorium does not imply stopping work.

And therefore he criticized the “reductionist” expression issued by the president “and distanced from reality” because he has ignored the needs of the population, which the opposition has promoted, but they are not heard.

The coordinator of the PAN deputies, Jorge Herrera Romero, clarified to the president that, to begin with, Congress is in a legislative recess period, so if an extraordinary period is not called, no reform of any kind could pass anyway. .

But in addition, he explained, Va por México has expressed its rejection of two amendments: the electoral reform and that of the National Guard and “it is not that we are not going to legislate” because even the rejection of a proposal is to legislate.

What is going to happen is that when the time comes to discuss them “we go to committees, we rule, we are just going to vote against it. We have never said that we are not going to work. Of course there will be no paralysis,” said the PAN member.

“There is no legislative paralysis, work continues in the Permanent Commission, in the commissions, the important thing is not to allow reforms to the Constitution that break the democratic regime, as is sought with the electoral one,” replied the PRI leader, Moreno Cárdenas.

What triggered the moratorium?

The opposition leaders exposed a whole history of grievances as justification for announcing the moratorium, although, as Herrera explained, there is no ordinary period of sessions so that they could really, today, without sessions in between, neither approve nor reject any type of reform statutory or constitutional.

Marko Cortés, leader of the PAN listed the causes that led the opposition to decide not to approve amendments to the Constitution.

The president “has canceled any possibility of dialogue with the opposition parties”, has incurred in “systematic violations of the Constitution” among them he has militarized the National Guard, “in addition he distorted the revocation of the mandate to satisfy a presidential whim ” and “deformed” the figure of the Popular Consultation.

The last straw was the elections, he said, due to the interference of the president and public officials in the campaigns, which led them to radicalize the opposition position.