Fabiola Martinez and Lilian Hernandez
The newspaper La Jornada
Wednesday, September 11, 2024, p. 8
In a split vote, the Prerogatives and Political Parties Commission of the National Electoral Institute (INE) rejected the project that supports the reforms to the basic documents of the PRI, as a result of which its leader, Alejandro Moreno, was reelected and was also granted more powers over the parliamentary groups of this party.
Councilors Dania Ravel, the new president of the commission, Arturo Castillo and Uuc-kib Espadas voted against, warning that changes of this type cannot be made during the federal electoral process, which concluded on August 28, while the PRI reforms took place in July.
Carla Humphrey and Norma de la Cruz voted in favor of the draft prepared by the Executive Directorate of Prerogatives and Political Parties.
Therefore, this board will have to prepare a new document based on the majority criteria and take it to the General Council, where 11 councillors vote.
Thus, the coin is in the air as to the validity of the changes applied and the re-election of Alitonot only because of what the INE ultimately determines, but also because of the foreseeable challenges to the agreement, hence once again the final word will be up to the higher chamber of the Electoral Tribunal of the Judicial Branch of the Federation (TEPJF) which, last July, when the matter came to its court, decided to send all the challenges to the National Commission of Party Justice of the PRI, including those filed by former party leaders Dulce María Sauri, Enrique Ochoa and Pedro Joaquín Coldwell.
The rejected draft was based on one premise: the changes to the PRI’s basic documents were approved in the exercise of its freedom of self-organization (The DaySeptember 8, 2024). Regarding the re-election of its leadership, he said that complies with the constitutional and legal parameters, in exercise of the freedom of self-government and self-organization of the aforementioned political party
.
He also emphasized the aforementioned resolution of the TEPJF, that is, that first it is the party commission that decides if there were irregularities in the call that led Moreno and his people to secure at least another period in the tricolor.
Since last June, just a few days after the June 2 election, the PRI took compliance with the INE’s orders on political violence and substantive parity as the ideal situation to approve the reforms to the Declaration of Principles, Action Program and Statutes; in that context, it modified article 178 of the statutes, which allows the Presidency and the General Secretariat of the National Executive Committee to be elected for up to three consecutive terms.
At the INE commission session, Councilor Castillo suggested postponing the issue until this Wednesday, in order not to contaminate the decision with the discussion of judicial reform, but as that option did not proceed, already in the analysis he said that although there is a ruling by the TEPJF, from 2019, in the sense indicated by the draft, there are also three precedents from the same court that indicate that the electoral process ends until the stage of results and qualification of the election.
They also rejected the PRI’s claim that Morena was allowed to change statutes in 2018.
A reform made at times expressly prohibited by law should not be admitted.
warned in his turn the counselor Espadas.
Once the draft was rejected, a vote was taken to give the green light to drafting another one, without having a clear idea of its scope, hence when Councillor De la Cruz voted she was heard saying: In favor, let’s see what happens
referring to the fact that if she and her colleagues had spoken out against it, the matter would have been buried.
