Politics: Wide-ranging effects of AMLO’s failed attempt to pass electric power sector reform
It became increasingly obvious in the days leading up to the Easter Sunday vote in the Chamber of Deputies that the administration’s electric power sector reform was headed for defeat as the leaders of all four opposition congressional caucuses, with their 223 deputies, made it clear they would stand their ground—enough to deny the administration the two-thirds majority needed for passage. There is no way for AMLO and his followers to deny the gravity of this defeat, not only because it marks the first time, under this administration and in almost 25 years, that Congress has rejected a presidentially backed constitutional reform proposal, but also because it blew a major hole in 4T efforts to roll back legislative efforts to open the industry.
The implications going forward, especially for the 2024 presidential elections, are considerable. The first and most obvious outcome was to help the PAN-PRI-PRD opposition coalition that emerged in the 2021 midterms to coalesce into a more unified force, and to increase its chances of competing as a coalition two years from now. The test of fire will be for them to arrive at a consensus for the sort of mechanism they need to choose a joint—and above all competitive—presidential candidate acceptable to all; this is no small task as presidential hopefuls within both the PRI (including current party chairman Alejandro Moreno) and the PAN express confidence they are sufficiently entitled to head up the 2024 ticket.
The reform amendment’s defeat has also produced a further radicalization of AMLO and the governing camp, which has gone so far as to symbolically charge the opposition with treason and with Morena's general secretary announcing they intend to plaster the country with posters labeling opposition lawmakers as traitors. But such an approach provides more glue for the opposition to stand its ground and reject out of hand all future administration constitutional reforms, at the very least, and condemns the administration to future legislative defeats.
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