This will not please the Labor Party: the opinion on the 'Plan B' of electoral reform by President Claudia Sheinbaum states that the recall referendum should take place in 2027 and only adjusts the wording to reduce the number of council seats in municipalities. The 'Plan B' document is already circulating among the members of the Joint Commissions on Constitutional Points and Legislative Studies, which will hold a session on Tuesday, March 24, at 1:00 PM. The wording of the document left Claudia Sheinbaum's proposal intact, despite the Labor Party (PT), an ally of the Fourth Transformation that already 'defeated' the 'Plan A' of the electoral reform, rejecting that the recall referendum be held in 2027, the year of midterm elections. Could Claudia Sheinbaum ask for votes in a 'campaign' prior to the recall referendum? According to article two, the recall referendum, proposed by former President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, can be requested three months before the end of the second or third year of the term. Article three specifies that 'it will be held by free, direct and secret vote of citizens registered on the nominal roll, on the first Sunday of June of the third or fourth year of the term'. With this modification, the hypothetical recall referendum of Claudia Sheinbaum would coincide with the 2027 midterm elections, in which 17 governorships and the entire Chamber of Deputies will be renewed. 'The person subject to recall may disseminate the process and promote the vote in their favor in the terms established by the law on the matter', the document clarifies. 'And even so, 16 and a half million people voted', he pointed out. As opposition parties have criticized, this would allow President Claudia Sheinbaum to be in campaign mode, just like the aspirants from her party for 17 governorships. What does the 'Plan B' of electoral reform say about council members? Among the changes in the opinion is the adjustment to municipal council seats, since the Executive's initiative established that they should be reduced to a minimum of seven and a maximum of 15; however, they detected that more than a thousand municipalities have fewer than seven. The wording of the opinion leaves it between one and 15 councilors, 'in accordance with the principles of vertical and horizontal gender parity, gender perspective and substantive equality in the access, integration and exercise of municipal public power', a wording that had been omitted by mistake in the presidential proposal. But if there is a recall referendum, and in my 'morning conference' I say: 'Listen, remember that there is also a recall referendum in the '27 election', then let it be allowed to say it, because before nothing was allowed to be said during that period', she commented. Sheinbaum defended that the hypothetical recall referendum be held in 2027 to save resources and also in light of what happened with the 2022 vote, when López Obrador's permanence was at stake. 'They set up a third of the polling places, 'because there were not enough resources'. This clashes with what President Sheinbaum said in her 'morning conference' on Monday, March 23. 'If it is in the middle of the term, the president cannot campaign for a political party, in that we are totally in agreement'.
