by Murry Page
on 3 Feb 14
mazmessenger.com
In a ceremony Friday at the Chapultepec Castle President Peña Nieto
signed into law the political-electoral reforms passed by Congress and
ratified by the necessary federal jurisdictions. Nieto described the
legislation as a “momentous (step) toward the consolidation of Mexican
democracy.”
Beginning with the federal elections in 2018, the winning party in a
presidential election will be able to form a coalition government with
one or more political parties in Congress.
If a coalition is formed, the Senate must approve all Cabinet appointments except for the secretaries of defense and the navy.
Under the new law federal senators can stand for re-election for up
to two consecutive six-year terms, while members of the Chamber of
Deputies will be allowed to serve up to four consecutive three-year
terms.
The law also allows for the re-election of local lawmakers and mayors
and mandates parties to nominate women for 50 percent of candidacies in
legislative races.
The president and state governors will continue to be limited to a single, six-year term.
An additional aspect of the new law is that the office of the federal
Attorney General will become autonomous and the Senate will now appoint
the Attorney General to a nine-year term.
The electoral reform also establishes a new autonomous National
Electoral Institute that will replace the current Federal Electoral
Institute, which will organize federal elections and also assume some
duties currently carried out by state-level agencies.
A big change is that both federal and local election results may be
nullified by the National Electoral Institute for various reasons,
including when a party exceeds campaign spending limits by 5 percent or
makes use of funds of illicit origin.
(from Latin American Herald Tribune)
