Mexico is edging closer and closer to one-party rule

Power is often said to come with corresponding responsibility. Not so in Mexican politics. The ruling party, Morena, has been wielding the supermajority its coalition won in elections in June with little regard for the consequences. This week it pushed Mexico to the brink of a constitutional crisis.

The drama revolved around changes to the way Mexico’s judiciary works, implemented by Morena in a set of laws passed during the final days of Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s presidency in September. The main change was to mandate that all judges in Mexico be elected rather than appointed. On November 5th the Supreme Court narrowly rejected a proposal to strike down some parts of the new laws; it would have allowed judges to be elected to higher federal courts but not to the lower, local ones.

Had the court ruled differently, it would probably have led to an open clash with Claudia Sheinbaum, Mexico’s president since October 1st, and Morena. Party bigwigs had declared that they would ignore the ruling if it went against them. That would have risked contempt of court, and an escalating stand-off between executive and judiciary. Ms Sheinbaum herself said she had “a plan” to deal with the court. “The Supreme Court cannot be above the people’s voice,” she said, accusing it of overstepping its powers.

Previously Mexico’s highest court had largely deferred to the government on constitutional changes, only considering them on narrow grounds, such as the violation of correct procedure. But the court singled out the judicial changes for their importance to Mexico’s democracy. Analysts, human-rights organisations, businesses and foreign diplomats have all warned that electing judges would politicise the courts and erode the justice system’s independence and impartiality.

Morena used slippery methods to try to stop the court considering the case at all. On October 31st Congress passed a law that banned judicial review of constitutional changes, and attempted to write the law so that it applied retroactively to cover the judicial reforms.

The ruling party’s bad faith has been on display in other ways, too. The party had said it would let judges who resigned in advance of the judicial elections keep their pensions. Any who ran and lost would miss out. But after eight of the 11 Supreme Court judges announced their retirement, the party attacked them for living large at public expense—no matter that at least one of Ms Sheinbaum’s circle is a former top judge who enjoys a gigantic pension.

The court’s ruling is a win for Morena. It can now move ahead with the first lot of judicial elections in June. The Supreme Court’s resignations suggest it will play out as many fear: the three Supreme Court judges who will run for election were appointed by Morena and are confident they will be elected to their posts again. Around half of all judges and magistrates have said they will not stand for election.

The saga illustrates Morena’s appetite for control, and how far it will go to satisfy it. “Even though an elected Supreme Court will be loyal to them, they still wanted to control it,” says Javier Aparicio of CIDE, a university in Mexico City.

On November 4th Morena said it was getting ready to debate its next constitutional change. This one would remove checks and balances of a different sort by eliminating a raft of Mexico’s autonomous agencies, including the freedom-of-information body. A constitutional crisis has been averted, but Morena has tightened its grip. And Mexico looks ever more like a one-party state. ■