Fernando Camacho and Enrique Méndez
La Jornada Newspaper
Friday, December 6, 2024, p. 7
The National Electoral Institute (INE) and the Judiciary defended their budgets for fiscal year 2025 yesterday in the Chamber of Deputies, in separate meetings, in which Morena and her allies insisted that these are excessive amounts and will be cut. In response, electoral advisors and representatives of the Court warned of the negative consequences of a decrease in resources.
Before the Budget and Public Accounts Commission of the Chamber of Deputies, counselors Norma Irene de la Cruz and Rita Bell López Vences, from the temporary budget commission of the INE, warned that the extraordinary election of judges, ministers and magistrates next year It is not a matter of pesos and cents, but of how much legitimacy costs
of this unprecedented process.
In contrast, an adjustment proposal circulated in the Morena bench since yesterday that would lower the funds of the Judiciary from 82 billion to 79 thousand, and those of the INE from 40 billion to 35 thousand.
After explaining the reasons why the INE requests a pool of 40,119 million pesos by 2025 – of which 13,205 million would be for the judicial election –, De la Cruz asked the legislators: Please tell us how many resources you consider essential for the INE to be able to organize a process with the standards to which citizens are accustomed.
. The amount required, he emphasized, is not capricious
.
For his part, López Vences agreed that there is a whole operational work that is not seen, a logistical deployment from previous weeks that implies expenses at all times
. In an ironic tone, he told the deputies that if they do not endorse the required amount, We do a very simple consultation for children, but in the end we are going to legitimize people who are going to administer justice. You tell us what we remove
.
After the counselors’ presentations, opposition deputies considered reasonable
the budget requested by the INE for 2025, but Morena and its allies criticized the requested budget.
Downward adjustments
Daniel Andrade (Morena) criticized the increases in areas such as the executive direction of the INE, the contentious-electoral technical unit and the district boards, among other areas, for which he asked to revise the budget downwards. We are sure that this draft can be analyzed so that tomorrow Morena or Congress will not be guilty of not doing things well
.
Later, the Budget Commission received Gisela Morales González, senior official of the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation, and María Fernanda Casanueva de Diego, executive secretary of administration of the Federal Judiciary Council, who vindicated their budget requests for 2025 and they warned that if there are new budget cuts, workers’ rights would be affected.
Morales recalled that for next year the Court requested a budget of 5,922.9 million pesos, which means a decrease in real terms of 1.4 percent, compared to what was approved for the current year. Casanueva indicated that by 2025, 75,142.8 million were requested, a figure 3.3 percent lower in real terms compared to 2024.
