President Sheinbaum has been unable to reform Mexico’s electoral code. She failed to pass a bill that sought to modify the proportional representation system and reduce public financing for political parties. Many critics argued that the reform was intended to weaken pluralism in Mexico. Two weeks ago, Mexico’s Congress rejected the proposal.
In response, President Sheinbaum submitted a new initiative—commonly referred to as “Plan B.” Although this alternative proposal is less far-reaching and less damaging than the original constitutional reform, it nonetheless raises concerns about the trajectory of Mexican democracy.
The most consequential element of Plan B is the proposal to hold a presidential recall referendum (consulta de revocación de mandato) in 2027, coinciding with Mexico’s midterm elections. This seemingly procedural adjustment carries significant political implications.
The recall referendum mechanism was first introduced during the presidency of Andrés Manuel López Obrador in 2019. In principle, it was designed as a democratic tool to allow citizens to remove a president from office before the end of their term. In practice, however, it functioned differently. In 2022, despite the absence of any meaningful demand to remove the president, López Obrador promoted and organized the process through his political movement, Morena. Rather than serving as an instrument of accountability, the exercise became a de facto ratification referendum—a mechanism for political mobilization and propaganda that reinforced presidential legitimacy.
President Sheinbaum now appears to be seeking to replicate that model.
By scheduling a recall referendum in 2027, she would ensure that her name appears on the ballot alongside candidates for multiple offices. This is not a minor electoral cycle. The 2027 elections are expected to be the largest in Mexico’s history, with voters choosing 17 governors, the entire Chamber of Deputies, as well as thousands of mayors and local legislators. In that context, the presence of a highly popular president on the ballot would likely benefit candidates from the ruling party, Morena.
This dynamic raises a fundamental concern: the blurring of the line between the institutional role of the presidency and partisan electoral competition. A sitting president actively participating in a recall referendum held simultaneously with midterm elections would effectively act as the chief campaigner of the ruling party. This would distort the level playing field and undermine one of the core principles of democratic competition—namely, that incumbents should not leverage the full power of the state to influence electoral outcomes.
The rest of Plan B is comparatively less consequential but still indicative of a broader approach. The proposal includes measures such as reducing the size of municipal councils (cabildos) and cutting the cost and size of state legislatures. While framed as efforts to promote austerity and efficiency, these changes address secondary aspects of the political system and do little to strengthen democratic institutions. In some cases, they could even weaken local representation and oversight capacity.
These developments occur in a context in which Mexico has already experienced a decline in international indicators of democratic quality. Comparative datasets such as those produced by the Varieties of Democracy Institute (V-Dem) and the Economist Intelligence Unit show that Mexico’s democratic performance has deteriorated in recent years. Although elections continue to take place, several indicators point to rising polarization, growing pressure on independent institutions, and a gradual weakening of checks and balances.
This trend is particularly concerning when viewed against the backdrop of Mexico’s democratic transition. For most of the twentieth century, the country operated under a dominant-party system led by the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI). Beginning in the late 1980s, a series of reforms gradually opened the political system. Electoral rules were redesigned, opposition parties gained greater access to media and public financing, and independent electoral authorities were established to guarantee impartial oversight.
These reforms culminated in the creation of the National Electoral Institute (INE), one of the most sophisticated electoral authorities in the developing world. The transition reached a symbolic turning point in 2000, when opposition candidate Vicente Fox won the presidency, ending more than seventy years of uninterrupted PRI rule. Over the following two decades, Mexico consolidated a competitive system characterized by peaceful alternation of power.
It is precisely this institutional legacy that is now at risk of gradual erosion.
Plan B does not represent a dramatic institutional overhaul. Its provisions are more limited and, at first glance, less threatening than those contained in the original constitutional reform. Yet its political logic is clear: to reshape incentives and electoral dynamics in ways that favor the ruling party.
Democratic backsliding rarely occurs through a single sweeping reform. More often, it unfolds incrementally, through a series of changes that individually appear modest but collectively alter the balance of competition and weaken institutional safeguards.
Mexico’s democratic transition was built over decades through deliberate efforts to constrain power, level the electoral playing field, and strengthen autonomous institutions. Preserving those achievements will require vigilance—not only against sweeping constitutional changes, but also against subtler reforms that, over time, may prove equally consequential.
