INE expensive?

Jesús Martín Mendoza / Ojos que sí ven / Opinión El Heraldo de México
Jesús Martin Mendoza / Eyes That See / Opinion The Herald of MexicoCredits: Special

The current political class blames the yearly spending National Electoral Institute prohibitively expensive, and this is one of the reasons why the president Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador Morena’s party and its allies are pushing for electoral reform that, in addition to lowering the “price of democracy”, aims to limit the institution’s autonomy. INE expensive? It all depends on the glass you are viewing from.

Money has always been the Achilles’ heel of our electoral judge, because while two decades ago it was an example of how to conduct exemplary and corruption-free electoral processes, technological advances in this matter have left INE behind. It incurs higher costs due to the implementation of already outdated processes. A prime example is the cost of the presidential election in Brazil, where he won. Luis Ignacio da Silva. The entire process, including e-voting technology, did not exceed the equivalent of 10 billion pesos.

Whereas our INE requires a budget of 14,500 million pesos to conduct local processes in Coahuila, Mexico in 2023 and to prepare for the 2024 federal elections. Now, if we compare this budget with the budget used by the United States for the 2020 presidential election process, the data fades dramatically. Two years ago, the United States spent $11 billion, equivalent to 220 billion pesos, the largest spending in the history of this country. Today, Americans are still in doubt about the amount of money used in the process, which was not free from allegations of corruption and even the attack on the Capitol.

But if we compare the spending that INE plans for 2023 with other spending items in Mexico, they no longer seem as excessive as they are led to believe by a less informed population. In one of his analyzes, publicist and journalist Carlos Alazrachi compared the INE budget to what the government used to cancel the New Mexico International Airport, amounting to over 300 billion pesos.

He compared this to the cost of upgrading the Santa Lucia Air Base, which reached 134 billion pesos. He also compared INE’s budget to losses Mexican oil which already reach 224 billion pesos, or the losses of the Federal Electricity Commission, which are currently estimated at 94 billion pesos. We also cannot say that INE is an example of value for money.

Although its budget is much lower than other federal government spending, the media question the INE about the use of its resources. An institution that organizes elections, but carries out media monitoring activities, a task that does not correspond to it. Another case was the underutilization of 350 million pesos during the time of presidential adviser Leonardo Valdes, who flatly refused to return to the federal treasury and the two office towers, green spaces, a bike path and even a garden that INE intended to build at its current location on the Periferico, which had been criticized and disputed. y Viaducto Tlalpan in 2017 for 1.9 billion pesos.

Project canceled according to your President Lorenzo Cordovabecause of austerity, but we all know it was because of the terrible wear and tear that the pharaoh project meant for a judge in an election a year before the presidential election that López Obrador finally won.

INE is not a chemically pure institute. He made serious mistakes in his public life, but none of them justifies his disappearance by taking us back four decades to democracy. His defense will not be an easy task.

The heart that feels

Level playing field for all, termination of public office and open elections are demands Marcelo EbrardMinister of Foreign Affairs for the electoral process of candidate Morena for 2024. He knows well that if the elections are open, he will have a big advantage.

FROM JESUS ​​MARTIN MENDOZA
[email protected]
@JESUSMARTINMX

MAAZ

Source: Heraldo De Mexico

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