After Sheinbaum's Electoral Reform Stalls, What Comes Next?

Sheinbaum’s electoral reform, divided into 10 points, included the following constitutional changes:

• Reduction of proportional representation seats: Cutting the 128-member Senate to 96, shedding 32 seats selected through proportional representation. In the 500-strong Chamber of Deputies, the number of proportional representation seats would go from 200 to 100, with the other 100 going to the strongest runners-up in single member districts.
• Funding slashed for political parties and institutions, including a 25 percent reduction in funding for political parties and to the budget of the INE. The time allocated to parties for political advertising would also be reduced.
• Other measures: Mandated labeling of AI content, promoting use of popular consultations and referendums, and ending consecutive reelection—an option that’s only been in place since 2018. 

Even before the reform was presented, the opposition National Action Party (PAN), Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), and the Citizens’ Movement (MC) came out against it.

Sheinbaum's Morena party has a majority in Congress, but, as a constitutional reform, the votes of its junior coalition partners, the PVEM and the PT, were needed to pass the two-thirds threshold. They rejected it.

Why? Under the proposed changes to the proportional representative system, both would potentially lose seats, and public funding cuts would hamper their activities. Alberto Anaya, leader of the leftist PT, argued the reform would destroy Mexico’s party system. 

The proposal even caused “a few sparks of opposition even within Morena,” says de la Fuente, with three legislators from the party voting against it.

Sheinbaum articulated a vision of what her Plan B will look like in her March 12 press conference. Here, she focused on the curtailing of budgets and seats in local congresses and municipalities, as well as cuts in the Senate and strengthening the popular consultation mechanism. She said that she may use this electoral tool to push for national votes on aspects of the electoral reform or enact a referendum on her presidency in her third or fourth year. 

More details will be articulated in Plan B materials submitted next week. Given Morena’s 2024 judicial reform, which led to the election of a Supreme Court more closely allied to the government, the top court would be less likely to serve as an obstacle to a reform—constitutional or not— that wins congressional approval.

Farid says that, instead of seeking a constitutional reform, which requires two-thirds support, Sheinbaum could instead seek to pass laws that would only need majorities in each house. “The caveat,” says Farid, “is that, as they are modifying it without putting it in the constitution, they could be reversed more easily.” If Sheinbaum chooses this route, he continues, she may attempt to pass more than just what’s in her electoral reform, including expanded reforms to the INE. Such a move would build on López Obrador’s historical animosity toward the agency, which he had attempted to restructure.

Despite this, while Sheinbaum's proposal substantially trimmed the agency’s budget, de la Fuente said the president could have gone further. “I was quite surprised because the president had been very vocal about her wanting elections to be cheaper and that the structures of the electoral institutions were too expensive,” said de la Fuente. She explains that compared with other countries’ electoral agencies, the INE is more costly but it’s because it has a larger remit of responsibilities than comparable institutions. Now, de la Fuente expects a part of the Plan B to target the INE, either slashing its budget or narrowing its domain.

In June 2027, Mexicans will vote in a midterm in which they will renew all seats in the Chamber of Deputies and vote for 17 governorships. For any of these electoral reforms to be in place in time for that round, they must be passed 90 days ahead of the start of the electoral season in September.

Farid contends that the reform’s failure spells other challenges for Sheinbaum heading into that election. “It will confirm a sense that she doesn’t have control over the party,” he says, adding it could weaken her ability to exert her preferences on midterm candidate nominations. Morena officials have argued that the coalition will stick together, regardless of the reform’s rejection. However, Farid notes, “Behind the scenes, some sources say the relation is strained. It may not be broken, but it’s not the same as it was in 2024.”

But de la Fuente argues that resistance to the electoral reform be a political boon for the president’s government. In a country where trust in Congress runs low, Sheinbaum’s reform measures to slash funds for parties and expand direct election of legislators had over 80 percent approval per a February Enkoll poll.

“It benefits them in terms of saying that they’ve been trying to cut privileges, but they are still being blocked by political elites,” she said.