• SURPRISE: Mexico’s ruling coalition managed to pass a surprise, last-minute legal change that could allow the president of the Mexican Supreme Court to extend his mandate for two years in what opposition parties denounced as a power grab to benefit president Andrés Manuel López Obrador.
• MANEUVER: In an eleventh-hour amendment to a larger bill that goes now to the Lower House, López Obrador’s majority in the Senate inserted a clause that would allow justice Arturo Zaldívar to remain as president of the Mexico’s Supreme Court until 2024. The bill passed 85 to 25.
• COUP: “It’s a coup”, Senator Damián Zepeda of the opposition National Action Party (PAN). “They want to control the Judiciary for the remainder of the administration of president López Obrador. It’s truly an abuse, an illegality. It’s a corrupt act […] They seek to dominate a branch of power illegally ”,
• CONSTITUTION: While it still has to pass the Lower House, legal experts noted that the amendment would go against article 97 of the Constitution. The clause also extends from 5 to 7 years the term of the members of Mexico’s Federal Judiciary Council, an administrative organ.
