Photo: savonitti.net

By KELIN DILLON

As Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s (AMLO) controversial electric reform continues to receive pushback, including the recent rejection of the proposal by 18 members of the Institutional Revolution Party (PRI), the executive and his own party, the National Regeneration Movement (Morena) have acquiesced to being open toward changes to the reform.

Despite this newfound receptivity toward inter-party collaboration, Morena’s president of the Energy Commission of the Chamber of Deputies, Manuel Rodríguez. said “the spirit of what is sought to achieve with the reform is not up for discussion,” reaffirming its commitment to put the state-owned Federal Electricity Commission (CFE) as majority and priority uploader to Mexico’s power grid.

As of now, Morena needs 333 votes in the Chamber of Deputies to push through the reform, a number the party and its allies are shy of by 56 votes, necessitating cooperation from opposition parties like the PRI. 

“The commitment of Morena in the parliamentary group is to try to convince all federal deputies from all parties of the benefits that this reform will bring all of them,” continued Rodríguez. “That is the mission and we are going to try to get to that point.”

Rodríguez went on to say that the reform is open to being changed to benefit everyone involved and to ensure its passage, despite AMLO’s previous insistence that his reforms be pushed through “without changing a single comma.”