Politics: Following a new Supreme Court setback, AMLO sets his sights on an improbably massive 2024 victory and more reforms
On May 8, the Supreme Court handed the López Obrador administration another setback by declaring that a first part of the government’s Plan B electoral reforms were unconstitutional because proper legislative procedures were not followed when Congress approved them. The main objectives of the now void reforms were to work around most constitutional bans on government officials from promoting their programs and policies or actively supporting candidates during election campaigns—rules that were adopted at the insistence of AMLO following his defeat in the 2006 presidential campaign but which he wishes to erase now that he is in power. López Obrador responded to the ruling by lambasting the High Court as "beyond repair" and renewing his call for judges to be chosen by popular vote.
With the Supreme Court likely to strike down other reforms of his, the President called on voters in 2024 to give his Morena party the qualified majority in both chambers of Congress needed for him and his successor to further advance the 4T reform agenda, including such immediate objectives as putting an end to the Judiciary’s independence, eliminating accountability requirements and consolidating the militarization of public security. But achieving such a qualified majority is almost a mathematical impossibility and a political one, as well. AMLO swept the 2018 presidential election with 53% of the vote, an unprecedented margin of victory since the end of single-party rule more than two decades ago. But Morena’s 2024 presidential nominee, at this point most likely Claudia Sheinbaum or Marcelo Ebrard, is unlikely to give the strong down-ballot boost to congressional candidates that AMLO managed six years earlier with his charisma and decades-long populist campaigning. His best bet might be to try to splinter the opposition coalition before the election. But even then, a qualified majority looks like a long shot.
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