Mexican lawmaker asks for impeachments
A Mexican lawmaker introduced a resolution in Congress in order to reprimand Baja California Assembly members who voted in favor of extending the next gubernatorial term to five years.
The resolution introduced by Congresswoman Lizbeth Mata, a Mexicali member of the National Action Party, also includes a request to impeach 21 state lawmakers.
Mata named the Constitutional bill approved Monday as illegal and anti-democratic.
On the evening of July 8, state lawmakers held a meeting to extend the next gubernatorial to five year. That term originally was supposed to last for just two years in order to hold local and federal elections concurrently starting in 2021.
Congresswoman Mata said her party plans to file an appeal with the Mexican Supreme Court.
Although the city councils of Ensenada, Tecate and Rosarito Beach voted in favor of the bill (which was legally needed before enactment), Baja California Gov. Francisco Vega said previously the bill will not get enacted.
Mata said Supreme Court Justices had ruled before against extending gubernatorial terms after holding elections.
Gov.-elect Jaime Bonilla, of the president’s National Regeneration Movement Party, was elected last month for a two-year term with half of the votes cast.
Weeks ago, Assembly Speaker Benjamín Gómez said in an interview that Bonilla offered up to $1 million to lawmakers who eventually approve the term extension. Gómez was one of those who voted for the bill.
“This generates a very bad and inadequate precedent to the country,” Mata said.
Bonilla, who has already filed requests at Electoral Court to extend the term, blamed the three-decade governing party for the controversy.
The bill approval has been harshly criticized by Mexican political figures like former Presidential candidate Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas and lawmakers with the president’s party like Tatiana Clouthier and Gerardo Fernández Noroña.
State lawmakers who voted for the bill are at risk of getting expelled from their respective parties.