Mexico’s Sunday elections will have a big U.S. impact on migration, trade, drugs | Opinion

You may not realize it from how little U.S. media coverage it’s getting, but Mexico’s Sunday presidential elections could have a huge impact on America. At stake is the future of democracy in Mexico, which could affect immigration, trade, drugs, and the environment across the border.

Mexico recently surpassed China as America’s top trade partner in the world, and is the largest source of undocumented immigration and drug trafficking to the United States.

Polls show that government-backed candidate Claudia Sheinbaum, a former Mexico City mayor, enjoys a comfortable lead over center-right opposition candidate Xóchitl Galvez. Sheinbaum vows to follow the policies of outgoing leftist-populist president Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who has spent massive government funds to boost her campaign.

Galvez told me in an interview earlier this month that the election’s outcome will depend on the turnout. If there’s a low turnout, Sheinbaum is likely to win, because she will benefit from a well-oiled government vote-getting machinery than can get public employees and beneficiaries of social subsidies to the polls, Galvez told me.

Conversely, if there’s a voter turnout of 63% of the vote or higher, the opposition will win, she added. “Sixty-three percent is the magic number. If 63% of the people turn out, I’ll be the next president,” she told me.

The reason Mexico’s democracy is at stake is that Lopez Obrador is championing a constitutional reform that would amend 51 of the 136 articles of the Constitution in ways that would give Mexico’s ruling party extraordinary powers. Sheinbaum says she would support the president’s proposed reforms.

Among other things, Lopez Obrador’s constitutional changes would further weaken the independent National Electoral Institute (INE,) the country’s electoral monitoring institution, which has played a key role in Mexico’s transition to democracy. Lopez Obrador says the INE is too expensive to maintain, a claim that is hard to believe in light of the outgoing president’s massive expenditures in dubious public projects.

Lopez Obrador’s proposed reforms would also include reducing the number of legislators in Congress and a drastic overhaul of the justice system. These and other constitutional changes would give Lopez Obrador’s ruling party more influence over which legislators and judges would be elected.

To pass his constitutional reform, Lopez Obrador will need to win a super-majority of two-thirds of Congress in Sunday’s elections. If his party wins that super-majority, Lopez Obrador could approve his constitutional amendments before stepping down on Oct. 1, or leave that task to his successor.

“The president’s constitutional reforms package puts Mexico’s democracy at serious risk,” Tamara Taraciuk, a rule of law expert with the Inter-American Dialogue think tank, told me. “If it’s approved, it would severely undermine the ability of independent institutions to act as checks on the presidency.”

Of course, if Sheinbaum wins, there’s always the possibility that she could turn her back on Lopez Obrador once elected. Mexico has a long tradition of presidents who have turned against their predecessors who helped them get elected.

Unlike Lopez Obrador, who doesn’t speak any foreign language and didn’t travel abroad until late in life, Sheinbaum is a scientist who did post-graduate research work at the University of California at Berkeley, and reportedly has a sister and daughter living in the United States.

But Sheinbaum is a life-long leftist activist. Even if she wanted to distance herself from Lopez Obrador, she would face huge constraints to do so. The outgoing president is the founder and undisputed leader of the ruling Morena party, whose support she would need to get anything done in Congress.

More importantly, under a new recall referendum law approved by Lopez Obrador, Sheinbaum could be deposed after two years in office. This would make her a political hostage of Lopez Obrador, because he could order his party to call a referendum and throw her out of office.

The bottom line is that, if Lopez Obrador passes his constitutional reform, Mexico will have fewer checks and balances. That would only lead to more government corruption, more political instability, and more problems for Mexico’s neighbors.

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