Mexico’s new president, Claudia Sheinbaum, said on Monday she would facilitate a broad discussion of proposed constitutional reforms, including a judicial reform that has rattled markets, before the next session of Congress, Mexican media reported.
The judicial reform would replace the appointed Supreme Court with popularly elected judges, as well as some lower courts, in a move that critics say would fundamentally alter the balance of power in Mexico.
Sheinbaum, speaking at a news conference after meeting with outgoing President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, said the reform would be “one of the first” that could be enacted, along with some increases in social benefits.
She said she did not believe the proposed reforms would affect the peso exchange rate, which has plummeted since her election victory earlier this month. However, during Sheinbaum’s speech, the peso exchange rate fell nearly 2 per cent to around 18.55 per US dollar in international trading. Analyst Gabriela Siller from Banco Base said on X:
“With the current scenario of uncertainty, an exchange rate of 20 pesos per dollar for this year can’t be ruled out.”
Some of the measures are part of a raft of constitutional reforms proposed by López Obrador in February, which would also eliminate key regulatory agencies.
They didn’t cause market concern at the time, but investors sounded the alarm when the ruling coalition began seeking the supermajority in Congress needed to pass the constitutional reforms in the June 2 election.
The Morena-led coalition won a two-thirds majority in the lower house but fell just short in the Senate, although analysts believe additional votes could be negotiated.
López Obrador has a chance to try to pass reforms
While the newly elected Congress will begin work in early September, Sheinbaum will not be inaugurated until a month later, which could give López Obrador and lawmakers a chance to try to pass reforms. Sheinbaum said:
“In the case of the judicial reform, (discussion) should be through the bar association, professors of law, the ministers and magistrates themselves.”
She added that she would name her cabinet next week and that a team sent by US President Joe Biden would arrive on Tuesday.
Sheinbaum began her political career in 2000. López Obrador, then mayor of the capital, appointed her Mexico City’s environment minister. In this position, she oversaw the modernisation of the city’s bus system and the construction of the capital’s ring road.
In 2006, Sheinbaum left the city government and returned to teaching and research. A year later, she and other experts from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change won the Nobel Peace Prize.
