On 3 September Mexico’s President Andrés Manuel López Obrador celebrated the congressional approval of a bill to remove presidential immunity, the 'fuero presidencial'.
Analysis:
This was a campaign promise of López Obrador in 2018, although the timing of the bill’s approval was eye-catching: three former presidents Enrique Peña Nieto (2012-2018) and Carlos Salinas de Gortari (1988-1994) of the Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI), and Felipe Calderón (2006-2012) of the Partido Acción Nacional (PAN), were recently included in wide-ranging corruption accusations by the former director of the state-owned oil company Pemex, Emilio Lozoya.
- The bill ending the fuero presidencial was approved unopposed in the federal lower chamber of congress, with 420 deputies voting in favour and 15 abstaining, late on 2 September. This required amending two articles of the constitution.
- Speaking during his morning press conference, López Obrador said the approval of the bill terminating the ‘fuero’, which prevented the prosecution of the president for anything other than treason, was “historic”. López Obrador sent the constitutional reform initiative to congress on 4 December 2018, just three days after he took office.
- López Obrador predicted that the bill would sail through the senate given its smooth passage through the lower chamber of congress. If opposition parties voted together, however, they could preclude the requisite two-thirds majority, and they are in discussions about doing just this.
- The PAN argues that the bill would not eliminate the ‘fuero’ as such, simply expand the list of crimes for which a president could be charged to include corruption and electoral crimes. The president could only be formally charged with committing a crime by means of an absolute majority in the senate, which would be very difficult to muster. At present, for instance, the ruling left-wing Movimiento Regeneración Nacional (Morena) party has a decisive majority, which would shield López Obrador from prosecution, acting much like a ‘fuero’, should it ever come to that.
Looking Ahead: Because it necessitated constitutional amendments, the bill will also require approval by more than half of the country’s 32 state legislatures before it can enter into force.
