Mexican voters for the first time will elect their judges in a campaign that begins Sunday, a process involving thousands of little-known candidates that could drastically change the balance of power in the country.
The winners of June’s vote will fill the Supreme Court and half the federal judiciary, leaving voters to sort through more than 4,000 candidates for 881 seats. Most of them have never campaigned before, and they must only use their own money for self-promotion.
Until now, Supreme Court judges were nominated by the president and approved by the Senate, while judges had to pass exams to qualify for open posts and then were selected by a judicial oversight board once they’d served in junior positions.
“There’s a serious problem of corruption and nepotism,” President Claudia Sheinbaum said to reporters earlier this month. “The objective of the judicial reform is to heal the judicial branch and to make sure that there’s justice in Mexico, both for the rich and the poor.”
The need to win a popular vote has led to a slew of TikTok videos, splashy media interviews, and a lot of deal-making to try to stand out. The law forbids judicial candidates from buying radio or television ads, and they cannot buy advertising space in newspapers, social media, or on billboards. They can post on social media themselves.
Critics say that the election is a naked attempt by the ruling Morena party to influence courts, while Sheinbaum has insisted that the judiciary badly needs reform. She has brushed away the concerns of investors who threatened to exit Mexico if there wasn’t fair arbitration.
Bolivia recently had citizens elect their top judges, and some states in the US elect their local and state judges in partisan elections. But Mexicans are facing a dizzying number of options with only two months to make heads or tails of it all. On the June 1 election day, purple ballots will be for the Supreme Court, yellow for district judges, and turquoise for a disciplinary court.
Candidates are planning speaking tours to increase their name recognition, even though campaign spending for Supreme Court seats is capped at 1.5 million Mexican pesos (US$72,089).
“We have a doubly difficult task, first explaining to people what it is that we do, and second, convincing people that we should be in our posts,” said Roberto Omar Paredes, who is running for a federal seat in Mexico City. “The good thing is we came out of our bubble as judges.”
Half of the federal judges not up for election in 2025 will be elected in 2027. Sitting judges were given the chance to compete, but many of those disillusioned with the overhaul instead chose to resign.
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