Erika Hernandez/Reform Agency
Tuesday, March 14, 2023 | 2:54 p.m.
Mexico City.- After Morena described his reinstatement as a “pyrrhic victory” because the INE’s Executive Secretariat is deprived of power, Edmundo Jacobo warned that he will have the same powers until August, when the new restructuring would apply.
With the electoral reform, the Executive Secretariat of the INE, in which the most important administrative and legal decisions of the Institute fell, loses some twenty powers and locks and obligations are imposed on it.
For this reason, the electoral official assured that in the coming months the General Council will not only have to decide its future but also clarify its new responsibilities, since “Plan B”, he considered, is confusing and leaves loose attributions.
“Until now, yes (it continues to exercise the same powers). The term that the transitory ones of ‘Plan B’ define that this would have to be defined by August. It says that we are an auxiliary body of the General Council, what that is is yet to be defined “, he claimed.
“Unfortunately, ‘Plan B’ leaves open many issues that the Council will have to define in due course, nor is it sufficiently clear to me what task they want to assign to the Secretariat.”
To begin with, the Secretariat will no longer be a “central body”, it will now be a subsidiary body of the Council.
The executive secretary will last six years in office, but his re-election will be for three years, not six. He is required to submit an annual report on his performance and establishes that he may be removed, although they do not indicate the causes.
Before it was given independence to coordinate and supervise the executive and technical bodies of the Institute, now it must hold meetings in which the president of the INE and the internal comptroller will be present, and must render a report to the Council.
Another key point is that the Secretariat ceases to be an “Electoral Office”, for which reason control of the Electoral Litigation Technical Unit is removed, to which all complaints and denunciations against parties and politicians arrive. Said area passes to the Legal Department.
Hence, its attribution to attest to acts that influence equity in the contests, attend to issues that impact the organization of the election or request public notaries in the elections disappears.
It also takes away the power to approve the structure of the executive directorates, committees and other bodies of the Institute and to appoint the members of the local and district executive boards from among the members of the National Electoral Professional Service.
He will no longer be in charge of reviewing the preparation of the draft budget or the electoral calendars.
Before it was allowed to make decisions on logistical or technological procedures, now it is clarified that it will only propose to the Council.
“It is not clear to me that the auxiliary body of the General Council, in the previous law it was very clear what the functions of the secretary were. There are some other powers that Plan B cannot overthrow because they are defined in the Constitution, what it is like to be a legal representative of the institution,” he said.
He affirmed that for this reason the Committee to implement the reform, which is made up of seven directors, must define how the structure of the Secretariat and its new tasks remain.
Said internal body will start working next Thursday, and last week the directors approved an agreement that establishes that the changes of “Plan B” will be applied until the General Council approves the action plan, the design of which will take about five months.
“The Council will take all the steps it has to take and it is the Council that will eventually have to decide my future,” he indicated after clarifying that in April the directors who arrive could request his resignation, and this would proceed with eight of 11 votes.
He insisted that he did not challenge or take refuge to stay in office, but to force the rule of law to be respected.
“Because there is no impunity, what was at stake is impunity and arbitrariness, that is what I fought. Is that a Pyrrhic victory? Please!”, he added.
