Mexico’s president-elect unveils legislative agenda
MEXICO CITY: Fresh off his landslide election win, Mexican president-elect Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador unveiled his legislative agenda Wednesday, including an unusual plan for mid-term referendums to remove the president from office.
Speaking a day after electoral authorities confirmed his coalition will have an absolute majority in both houses of Congress, the anti-establishment leftist announced a 12-point plan for legislation to deliver the ‘true change’ he has promised Mexicans fed up with crime and corruption.
The politician known as ‘AMLO’ notably proposed a binding vote halfway through the six-year term on whether the
That is the mandate Mexicans gave us in the elections.They supported us, they voted for us, in order to put an end to corruption. And we are going to deliver. Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, Mexican president-elect
president should continue in the job.
He also vowed to change Article 108 of the constitution so that a sitting president can be tried for corruption or election-rigging.
“That is the mandate Mexicans gave us in the elections.
“They supported us, they voted for us, in order to put an end to corruption. And we are going to deliver,” he told a press conference after meeting incoming legislators from the coalition led by his party, Morena.
The new Congress begins work on Sept 1, though Lopez Obrador will only take office on Dec 1.
His coalition won 307 of 500 seats in the lower house and 69 of 128 in the Senate in the July 1 elections, in which Lopez Obrador surged to victory with more than 53 per cent of the vote in a four-way race.
Lopez Obrador, 64, said his coalition would also pass legislation to increase the jail terms for corruption, electoral fraud and the large-scale fuel theft that has been plaguing Mexico — and eliminate the possibility of bail for those crimes.
He also wants to reduce the presidential salary by more than half, and pass a constitutional amendment stipulating that no public official can earn more than the president.
The proposals also include reducing the number of high-level government officials, revoking outgoing President Enrique Pena Nieto’s controversial education reform and restoring Mexico’s public security ministry, which Pena Nieto eliminated. — AFP