Mexico City. After lengthy negotiations stretching from Friday morning into the early hours of Saturday, parties within the Morena coalition, along with the PT and PVEM, made progress at the Secretariat of Governance in finalizing an agreement to move forward with President Claudia Sheinbaum’s “Plan B” regarding electoral reforms. The development comes after Sheinbaum’s initial reform proposal was blocked by Congress, marking her first major legislative setback since taking office.
Shortly before 1:00 a.m. On Saturday, Ignacio Mier, the coordinator of Morena senators, emerged from the Palacio de Cobián and announced to waiting media that a deal was nearly complete. “There is a very well-defined agreement. You will likely learn the details in the coming hours. We see concluded; all that remains is for the Secretariat of Governance to create it public,” he said.
When pressed on the certainty of the coalition’s unified support for “Plan B,” Mier confirmed, “The plan is: we go together. The entire coalition at the state and municipal levels, state congresses, the Congress of the Union, and the leadership – Green and PT.”
Earlier in the evening, Manuel Velasco Coello, coordinator of the Green Ecologist Party of Mexico’s senators, stated that the meeting was proceeding “with good spirits,” and those present “continue to work” toward reaching an agreement.
By 1:30 a.m., personnel from the Secretariat of Governance indicated that all attendees and their teams had departed the Bucareli building.
As President Sheinbaum detailed during her Thursday press conference, “Plan B” – the presentation of which to Congress is scheduled for Monday – includes measures such as capping the expenses of local deputies, councilors, and senators, a restriction that could potentially extend to the Chamber of Deputies, potentially freeing up at least 4 billion pesos to address needs in states and municipalities. Sheinbaum’s remarks followed the rejection of her initial electoral reform proposal by Congress.
Sheinbaum also indicated that the project would expand public consultation on electoral issues, such as the budget of political parties, and would open the possibility of revoking mandates in the third year of a term, rather than solely in the fourth.
Throughout the day, coordinators from the Morena, PT, and Green parties in the Chamber of Deputies – Ricardo Monreal, Reginaldo Sandoval, and Carlos Puente, respectively – were seen entering and exiting the Secretariat of Governance. Also present were Velasco Coello, Arturo Escobar, the national electoral coordinator for the PVEM, and Benjamín Robles, a former deputy and the PT leader in Oaxaca state. Pablo Gómez, head of the Presidential Commission for Electoral Reform, did not attend the meeting.
Arturo Zaldívar, a retired minister and the General Coordinator of Policy and Government in the Office of the President, also departed the building during the day.
Legislators from the PT and PVEM expressed support for aspects of “Plan B,” such as limiting the number of councilors in municipalities, viewing it as a necessary “reengineering of the country’s public administration.” They indicated a willingness to consider such changes.
However, the potential inclusion of a vote on reducing or maintaining funding for political parties raised concerns. Benjamín Robles of the PT, for example, emphasized that this is a matter for the Legislature to decide and urged that “the resources of the parties” not be touched and that points already rejected by Congress “not be revisited.”
