Questioned about Sheinbaum’s position in defense of an overrepresentation that would give Morena and its allies a qualified majority, he said that “they are seeking to put pressure on in every possible way and she should not do so as the president-elect that she is formally, she should not intervene and much less pressure the councilors and much less the ministers.”
The PAN member rejected that the matter is already res judicata by the Electoral Tribunal of the Judicial Branch of the Federation (TEPJF) when, in response to a challenge by his party, the magistrates confirmed in its terms the Agreement INE/CG645/2023 of the General Council of the National Electoral Institute, through which the mechanism for the application of the formula for assigning deputies and senators by the principle of proportional representation in the Congress of the Union was determined, within the framework of the 2023-2024 federal electoral process.
“The moment that the Court itself told us was when this argument had to be made is now, prior to when the allocation of deputies will take place. Thus, in the ruling of the Electoral Court, we were told at the opportune moment and that is why it is at this opportune moment that we are here before the National Electoral Institute because this Friday will be the day when they will have to make the corresponding allocation,” he said.
The PAN leadership met with the advisors of the National Electoral Institute (INE).
In an interview upon his arrival, Cortés acknowledged the triumphs of the political force that calls itself the Fourth Transformation and is made up of Morena, the Labor Party and the Green Party (PVEM), as they achieved the majority, with 59.9% of the effective vote.
“But we have come to demand that it be recognized that the opposition as a whole obtained 43.1% of the vote. We have come to demand that it be recognized that the citizens did not give it the majority to reform the Constitution on its own.”
“We recognize that the Constitution speaks of an overrepresentation of up to 8% but not more than 8%, what they intend is to go from 55.9% (of votes) to 75%” of the Chamber of Deputies.
He therefore insisted that the 8% limit of permitted over-representation is applicable to coalition parties or forces, and in this case the block that calls itself the Fourth Transformation corresponds to only 8% of extra deputies than those obtained at the polls.
It is not correct, he insisted, that Morena has an extra 8% of the PT and an extra 8% of the PVEM, since that creates the “absurdity” that the PAN, with twice as many votes as the PVEM, has fewer deputies than the Greens.
He also recalled that there are two articles in the Constitution that do not clarify the issue, but that a “homogeneous interpretation” must therefore be made.
These are articles 56 and 54 of the Constitution, the first of which deals with the allocation of minority senators and the second with proportional representation deputies.
“The Constitution does not make clear whether it is a political party or a coalition, and I will give you a concrete example: for senators of the Republic, article (56) says that the first minority will be for that party – it does not say coalition – for the party that has obtained second place in the vote. The interpretation is for that coalition, that is the interpretation of 56 that we want to be given in 54.”
For all these reasons, he insisted that they went to the INE to “not allow a regression of this magnitude” because “in the Chamber of Deputies they would be losing the right that legislators have to present an action of unconstitutionality due to the number of signatures required.”
According to Cortés’s interpretation, the party that would benefit the most would be Movimiento Ciudadano, followed by the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) and then the PAN, but “our struggle is to guarantee plurality in Mexico.”
