Counselors will lead five regional meetings to respond to INE reform

Fabiola Martinez

Newspaper La Jornada
Sunday January 15, 2023, p. 8

The advisers of the National Electoral Institute (INE) prepare a defense strategy against the reform in this area. In principle, they plan to present constitutional controversies and defend the organization’s workforce.

The INE does not have a union, as it is an autonomous body that carries out specialized technical work; Its payroll is made up of almost 18,000 people with fixed positions, divided into two blocks: the electoral professional service and the administrative branch, both governed by statute.

The counselors will take the baton of the defense and, for now, they agreed to hold five regional meetings to reach all the workers and analyze particular aspects in each zone.

In the week that is ending, the president counselor, Lorenzo Córdova, indicated that 7,000 of the 17,600 workers would be affected because of the reform. Likewise, 350 seats of the 2,600 of the electoral professional service would disappear.

When asked about it, the counselor Carla Humphrey, president of the Electoral Organization Commission of the INE, asserted that there is concern.

We have had different meetings; we addressed the reduction of almost 85 percent of the electoral professional service and several issues that touch the core or the backbone of the institute itself, which start from a lack of knowledge and some of my colleagues have said that (the objective of the reform) is to harm to the electoral institutionhe commented in an interview.

The strategy, he stressed, is not a decision only of the president counselor, but of all those who agree that all legal lines will be exercised. Thus, as soon as the changes – derived from reforms to six laws – enter into force The legal routes will be detonated to defend, yes, the INE, but (mainly) our democracy.

The councilors – likewise Humphrey – ensure that their purposes do not respond to a political group, but to the objective of guaranteeing that there are solid institutions that organize the electoral processes. We continue to evaluate the path and for this we will have five meetings. Clearly, the structure of the institute is restless, worried about what might happenalerted.

In this route, the councilors met in recent days with the members (or representatives) of the INE in the 32 states, and there will be other specific meetings to continue with the definition of the defense strategy.

He pointed out that the changes – promoted by the legislative majority made up of Morena and his allies – affect the labor rights of INE workers and local institutes.

He clarified that he has been explicit in terms of being in favor of changes to make an INE more austere, slender and dynamic (…) but not in the way it was done, without even listening to the technical proposals of the electoral authority, because we are not playing on the political side nor are we legislators, but technically we were able to contribute elements that gave light to these discussions.