The Latin American Report # 511

The first popular election of judges and magistrates in Mexico was marked by a very low turnout, which undoubtedly casts a dense shadow over a process on which the ruling party bet heavily, presenting it as a sort of democratic summum to form the judiciary. Instead of a system based, in principle, on merit and experience, MORENA sold as an unpostponable necessity to move to an alternative that would deny its corruption and other vices, transferring to the people the responsibility of choosing even those who sit in the Aztec Supreme Court. The idea became law thanks to the muscle of the political force led by former President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, but with much rejection from popular, business, and political sectors that claim that the independence of the judiciary is being eroded.

On several occasions I addressed this issue here with the following essence: both the “old” and the “new” systems are and will be permeable to corruption, illegitimate influence in Francis Underwood mode, and the like. Either, at the same time, can be fertile for advancing democracy as long as they are designed and implemented well. The indirect way, in which judges are elected by the legislature, democracy would be well served to the same extent that informed and to some extent binding participation of the citizenry is ensured. In a direct way, democracy becomes a reality when the vote emerges from a mature, committed citizenry, resilient to the manipulation embodied in electoral campaigns. This does not seem to have been the case in an election in which less than 15% of the electorate participated, to begin with. This implies that, out of every five Mexicans, not even one attended the call.

Even so, President Claudia Sheinbaum defended the exercise, stating that it was a total success. “Mexico is the most democratic country in the world,” she claimed. "I'm not interested (in voting). Parties and their messages - they come and they go. It's all the same," said a 50-year-old factory worker in the capital. “The vast majority of the roughly 3,400 candidates were largely unknown, many have limited legal experience, and some questionable credentials for the seats they are seeking,” said Goldman Sachs' chief Latin America economist. I agree with one expert who focused on the surprisingly low turnout at the polls, “considering Sheinbaum's high approval rating and the fact that the majority of Mexicans were in favor of directly voting for judges.” In the following, let's see how the system deploys in practice, how it responds to the expectations of those who promoted it as the final lunge of democracy in the face of corruption and nepotism, and the doubts and denunciations of those who see it as an assault on the rule of law. Each group with its (bad or good) interests.