Of reforms and their political implications

By Sandra Romandía

In a move that seems to be straight out of Machiavelli's work, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has pushed through three legislative reforms in recent days that seem designed not only to settle scores, but to consolidate an image of benevolence and power just before the June 2 elections. Through a meticulous political chess game, these reforms-the Amparo Law, the Amnesty Law and the pension reform-unfold a strategy that mixes revenge with the ambition for political popularity and populist proposals that might resonate with a part of the electorate but leave deep cracks in the country's democratic structure.

First, the reform to the Amparo Law, hastily passed in the Chamber of Deputies, is a masterstroke in the power struggle between the executive and the judiciary. This law, which now limits the ability of judges and magistrates to immediately suspend potentially unconstitutional laws, ensures that many of the most controversial works of the sexenio-previously highlighted by journalistic investigations and activists-will continue without immediate legal obstacles. In essence, it reduces collective protection and cements a supremacy of the executive over the judiciary, a low blow in any book of democracy.