Mexican o cials file new legal challenge to term extension
The National Electoral Institute of Mexico announced the filing of a Declarative Action before the Supreme Court. The action is in addition to the electoral lawsuit previously filed.
With the action, the agency wants justices to clarify whether next governor’s term is of two or five years, according to the original election proclamation and the rulings made by the court.
The institute added that the Declarative Action would provide certainty to the election and its results that former Senator and former Otay Water District Board member Jaime Bonilla won in June.
In 2014, lawmakers approved a bill that would reduce next gubernatorial term to only two years until October 2021 in order to hold both local and Mexican elections concurrently starting that year.
However, Assembly members voted in August a bill to extend the term until 2024. The bill was enacted last week and eventually challenged in court by political parties and Gov. Francisco Vega.
The institute, also known as INE, emphasized that the bill was approved after the June elections and after results were certified.
In the document the institution says Supreme Court intervention in the matter is needed due to the uncertainty brought by lawmakers’ actions that affect democracy and its potential impact on Mexican law.
In response, Amador Rodríguez Lozano, transition director for Gov.-elect Jaime Bonilla called the actions held by the institute as an attack against the term extension.
Rodríguez, who will be secretary of government in the Bonilla administration, which starts Nov. 1, said INE’s board President Lorenzo Córdova has had an obstinate attitude against the governor-elect.
“In a clear invasion, (Córdova) pretends from the INE and without any legal attributions to order the Supreme Court to obstruct the oath of office ceremony of (the next) Governor of Baja California,” Rodríguez Lozano said. “The National Electoral Institute lacks the legal standing or legitimacy to file (the action and the constitutional lawsuit), which means (the institution) might be making constitutional violations.”
—Arturo Bojorquez, abojorquez@ivpressonline.
com