With a congressional supermajority sworn in this weekend, the ruling Morena coalition wants to change all members of the Supreme Court and other key magistrates by popular vote
June’s general election gave Claudia Sheinbaum the presidency of Mexico in a landslide victory, but it also handed her something even as potent: a Congress firmly in her grip, holding 364 seats in the lower house — well over the 334 needed to amend the Constitution without opposition support.
In the Senate, Morena and its allies are just shy of the two-thirds threshold, with 83 seats out of 128, only two seats away from the crucial 85 needed for constitutional changes.
With commanding majorities in both chambers, the 62-year-old climate scientist and close protégé of outgoing Mexican President Andrés Manuel “AMLO” López Obrador will lead an incumbent party with enough representatives to pass legislation almost as it pleases.
Weeks before Ms. Sheinbaum officially takes office on October 1, AMLO, Mexico’s highly popular left-wing leader, is trying to wrap up some of these changes before passing on the baton.
The newly elected Congress will be sworn in this weekend, a full month before AMLO’s term expires, offering him a critical window to push through his most controversial reforms while he still holds the reins, as part of his so-called Fourth Transformation of Mexico — a radical political project aimed at making sweeping changes to the country’s political and social landscape.