| | |  Editorials | Issues | June 2009 
Innovations May Mar Next Elections: UN
 Victor Mayén - RUMBO de México
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June 24, 2009
Mexico's electoral law has deep loopholes which create a legal vacuum due to lack of framework regulations, a group of United Nations analysts stated Tuesday.
They also raised an alert that the so-called "blank vote" could badly mangle the upcoming July 5 midterm elections.
Carina Perelli, vice-president of the International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES), said Mexico's new electoral model has given the nation an enormous capacity for innovation, turning it into "a lab on reforms and electoral techniques".
But beware, she added, because being at the forefront may force the country "to pay the price of innovation."
Pirelli acknowledged that the current Mexican electoral system is showing important inefficiencies which will be subject to revision and correction after the elections.
"The constitutional instrument has been abused as a means to establish norms", Ms Pirelli said during a round table called Follow Up and Evaluation of the 2007-2008 Electoral Network. "There are issues that don't normally fit into a constitutional article. There are legal loopholes in terms of framework laws, laws on special issues which would have to be present" in the current election process.
"That's why", Carina Pirelli added, "it leaves the electoral authorities the duty to legislate instead of the legislators, because there is a vacuum in terms of some organic laws which are missing, some laws of special majorities."
She cautioned that the recent electoral reform turned Mexico's Federal Electoral Institute (IFE) "into a super advertising agency" as it is forced it to place and monitor political advertising spots in the electronic media. At the same time it has to organize and control the entire electoral process.
Dong Nguyen, coordinator of the United Nations Project to Support Electoral Observation pointed out that the preliminary results and technical training at IFE will not be of great help "if we come down to very close elections." |
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