Mexico’s electoral reform will close the door on pluralism

by Luis Rubio, political analyst and Chair of México Evalúa.

President Claudia Sheinbaum has announced an electoral reform. Its details have not yet been made public, but its spirit has been clear since the beginning of the year, laid out through a series of official statements. What motivates this initiative is radically different from the logic that inspired every electoral (or political) reform since 1962, when Mexico introduced the figure of “party deputies” — in other words, opposition representatives — as a way to open space for diverse voices, oxygenate the system, and preserve political stability.

The central question is not what the reform will contain — its intent is already known — but how the two minor allies, the Green Party (PVEM) and the Labor Party (PT), will act. Without their support, passage is impossible.

From 1962 onward, every electoral reform pursued the same purpose: injecting oxygen into the political system. That was the rationale behind the 1978 reform engineered by Jesús Reyes Heroles, which gave legitimacy to left-wing parties such as the Communist Party and the Mexican Workers’ Party. Their numbers were negligible, but…