We should be debating issues such as citizen participation and the quality of democracy. Instead, we are very attentive to the dispute between the 4T and the INE for the query. We should be analyzing the effectiveness or not, of the plebiscites. But we are very distracted in the jostling for the budget of the consultation for the renewal of the mandate. And above all, the extraordinary privileges of the INE directors who are reproached by the citizens have come to light.
The president of the INE has taken the debate to the arena of budgets and money. Precisely to the terrain where the directors are most vulnerable and that least suits them.
There is a double narrative that runs in parallel. On the one hand, the counselors argue that they do not have the money to carry out the consultation. On the other hand, the government objects to lack of austerity. And it has placed the high salaries, privileges and discretion that directors enjoy centrally in public opinion. The defenders of the INE are left with few arguments to justify the immense canonries that high officials have enjoyed. The underlying issue is not money but the struggle for power. The councilors are losing the battle. The INE is paying the symbolic cost of the excesses of the privileges that they have historically enjoyed.
In the morning of January 17, AMLO exposed the contrasting budget differences of the electoral institutes in Latin America. The INE: 1,318 million dollars in 2021, followed by Colombia with 267 million dollars in the same year. Out of curiosity, I converted the budget granted to the IEEM in 2021 to dollars, about 150 million dollars, and I got a comparative surprise. The IEEM has a larger budget than most Latin American countries.
It is slightly below Argentina, which, in 2021, spent 165 million. But the money that the IEEM receives is far above countries like Chile, Bolivia, Ecuador, Uruguay and all the Central American countries. The purist goldfinches will look at the electoral register, the attributions and the electoral times. The overwhelming fact in 2021 is that not only the INE but also the IEEM are among the most expensive institutes in the region. I wonder if the numerous privileges and prerogatives enjoyed by the IEEM councilors, which are almost identical to those of the INE, will have to go through the critical review of Mexican citizens. Surely yes.
Bernardo Barranco
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