Maneuvering in the Mexican Senate: Controversial Judicial Reform Causes Uproar

With surprising maneuvers and new allegations, the Mexican ruling party Morena has apparently made behind-the-scenes preparations to push President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador's controversial judicial reform through the Senate. On Tuesday, Senator Miguel Angel Yunes Marquez, who according to media reports might change his initially negative stance, sent a letter to his colleagues. The reason for his absence, he stated, was "health problems" that made it impossible for him to fulfill his duties. Journalist Joaquin Lopez-Doriga reported on X that another senator, Daniel Barreda from the Citizen Movement party, might switch to the ranks of the Green Party to strengthen the ruling party’s coalition. These developments fueled speculation that Morena was exerting additional pressure on opposition lawmakers to secure the necessary 86 votes out of a total of 128. The planned constitutional amendment stipulates that the Supreme Court and other judges would be chosen by popular vote. The Senate subsequently approved that Yunes Marquez's father serve as an official substitute. However, the designated senator from the opposition PAN party avoided revealing his opinion on the reform, but he emphasized the necessity of free suffrage. On the same day, the coordinator of the Citizen Movement in the Senate claimed that Barreda's father had been arrested—a claim denied by the Morena coordinator in the Senate, former Interior Minister Adan Augusto Lopez. Originally, the Morena coalition planned to present the new bill on Tuesday and bring it to a vote on the same day. They warned that the heated debate might extend into the early hours of Wednesday morning. Ahead of the vote, the peso declined by 1% and traded slightly above the 20 per US dollar mark. This made Mexico's currency the second-biggest loser among the major currencies of the day, surpassed only by the Brazilian real.