The discussion on reforming Article 35 of the Constitution, to move up the presidential recall referendum to 2027 and align it with the elections to renew the Chamber of Deputies and 17 governorships, has been postponed until 2026, confirmed Ricardo Monreal, coordinator of the Morena party, this morning.
On November 10, the Constitutional Affairs Committee had called for a vote on the amendment, but that day the majority party agreed to postpone the debate on the bill to allow a few more days for discussion, following opposition claims of a supposed power grab.
The committee reconvened this Monday, December 1, but again announced that the debate was postponed until further notice.
In a brief interview after his group’s plenary meeting this Tuesday, Monreal said that the issue “is not on the agenda” for the last six sessions of the legislative period, which is scheduled to end on December 11.
“I think we’ll have to postpone it until February. It’s not planned; we only have one week left to conclude the session, we have to finish before the 15th, and it’s not on the agenda.
“We’ll try to review it and vote on it around February,” he said.
The draft opinion circulated to the committee members is based on an initiative presented in September by Morena, which proposed moving the process forward to “increase citizen participation, save resources, and reduce ‘election fatigue’ among the public.”
Currently, the aforementioned article stipulates that the recall election can be requested during the three months following the end of the third year of the presidential term, but the proposed change would move it forward to the three months following the end of the second year, that is, between October 1 and December 31, 2022.
Furthermore, the article specifies that the vote will be held on the Sunday following the 90 days after the date of the call for the election and on a date that is not coincide with federal or local election days. Under the current provision, the first such exercise was held in April 2022.
However, with the amendment proposed by Morena, the aim is for the consultation to take place on the same day and during the election day for federal deputies.
The proposal also considers holding a popular consultation on the same date, which is currently scheduled for August, thus aligning that exercise with the elections and the recall referendum.
Alfonso Ramírez Cuéllar, vice-coordinator of that group and author of the initiative, has stated that holding the recall referendum on the same day as the midterm elections would save 5 billion pesos.
Source: jornada
