Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador. Photo: Google

By KELIN DILLON

Tuesday, April 24, was a difficult day for Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) and his so-called Fourth Transformation, when a multitude of setbacks came crashing down on his plans for Mexico’s future, leaving López Obrador in a fury and his leftist National Regeneration Movement (Morena) party in a tailspin.

First and foremost, controversial Morena hopefuls for office Félix Salgado Macedonio and Raúl Morón were withdrawn from their candidacy for governorship of their respective states of Guerrero and Michoacán, after deliberation from the country’s Electoral Tribunal of the Federal Judiciary (TEPJF).

Macedonio, who’s candidacy was already deeply contentious following the multiple allegations of rape against him, had his candidacy dismissed by six votes to one due to failure to disclose pre-campaign funds, the blame of which he squarely placed on Morena for not carrying out.

Morón, with a closer vote of five to two, also had his candidacy removed for not properly declaring his funding sources, and giving Morena only 48 hours to replace its candidates for both Guerrero and Michoacán.

Then, after a two-week analysis, the TEPJF ratified the National Electoral Institute’s (INE) proposal to distribute deputies in Mexico’s Chamber of Deputies by proportional representation in order to avoid “artificial majorities,” a clear call-out of Morena’s current sweeping majority of the legislative chamber.

AMLO wasn’t shy to express his outrage against the INE and TEPJF’s decisions as “an act of provocation,” going on an extended rant against the judiciary committee’s choices in his press conference on the morning of Wednesday, April 28.

“I consider what the magistrates approved yesterday to be an excess. It is a blow to democracy, to the incipient Mexican democracy … there is no justification,” said López Obrador. “Both the advisers of the INE and the magistrates of the court acted in an undemocratic manner and this is explained because these organizations, like others, come from the old undemocratic regime.”

Finally, several blows were dealt to López Obrador’s new Federal Law on Telecommunications and Broadcasting, which would require the biometric data of all users attempting to acquire new SIM cards for their phones and compile them within a registry, with the National Institute of Transparency, Access to Information and Protection of Personal Data (INAI) being granted approval to file against the law’s unconstitutionality before Mexico’s Supreme Court.

Judge Juan Pablo Gómez Fierro, head of the Second District Court in Administrative Matters specialized in Economic Competition, Broadcasting and Telecommunications, then granted the first suspensions of the disputed law, after concluding the existence of the biometric registry would not necessarily decrease crime incidence, as touted by proponents of the law.

Now, following Tuesday’s events, López Obrador and Morena must go back to the drawing board, as the day left their Fourth Transformation both bruised and battered.

…April 29, 2021