The transcript of this episode can be accessed by clicking the “Transcript” button below the title. All other episodes are here.
Luke spoke with Mariano Guevara after Mexico’s first-ever popular election for federal judicial officials. Mariano is a law student and political activist in Mexico. You can find him at mariano_gl17 on X and Instagram.
This episode is in Spanish. An abridged translation in English is below.
Luke: Welcome to another episode of the Democratic Constitution Podcast. I’m happy to talk again with Mariano Guevara. We last spoke before Mexico’s judicial elections. Today, we are going to recap what happened. Thanks for joining us, Mariano.
Mariano: No, thank you very much, Luke. It's a pleasure to be here again. Just as we promised. We agreed that after the election, we would analyze the results a little, what's next for the judiciary in Mexico, how we're transitioning in terms of politics in Mexico, and so here we are.
L: Can you talk a little bit about the results?
M: Just to give a brief introduction, on June 1st, as we've already been discussing, we had extraordinary elections. Why extraordinary? They've never been held in the history of Mexico. And around 13 million people participated. 13 million people decided to go out and vote for our judges, magistrates, and ministers.
The Supreme Court ministers were the most important positions in this election. I've always said that the ministers and the judiciary in general have never been, nor will they ever be, outside the scope of politics.
We mostly got the results we expected. We essentially went out to vote for those people who supported reforming the judiciary in this way—people who, yes, I'll say it like it is, are activists from a leftist space, who sympathize with deepening a leftist project, and who believe that now the judiciary has opened up to people we never imagined.
Imagine, we're going to have a president of the Supreme Court who is a Mixtec lawyer from Oaxaca. This is unprecedented. It reflects the emancipation process that we're experiencing in Mexico. We're witnessing a transformation that began with Benito Juárez, who was the last president of the Left Court. Lerdo de Tejada succeeded him, turning the court around 360 degrees.
Of course, I believe—and I'll be very sincere—that the process needs adjustments. It requires analysis; there needs to be self-criticism within the Executive Branch, which proposed it (well, President López Obrador proposed it). As young people, I think it's essential for us to remain constantly critical. If not, the transformation will somehow stagnate, and that's the logic we want to avoid.
There's a colleague at work (an older adult whom I greatly admire) who says that young people are going to fight for the 5T. What does she mean by the 5T? Potentially, the 4T will no longer align with what young people believe, with what we criticize, with what we support, with an alternative system, which is what we seek and long to achieve. I say openly: we are against a capitalist system, and that’s what we should strive for.
Returning a bit to the judicial branch. The issue of the Supreme Court is a great achievement. We now have individuals who come from judicial careers, social struggles, and who are affiliated with academia. We have the case of Hugo Aguilar, who comes from the indigenous struggle. In other words, we managed to create a plural court. It is a left-wing court. It would be a big lie to say it isn’t. But it was also the left's turn to have the court.
Look at Cristina Fernández de Kirchner in Argentina. They're building a political case against her because she wants to be a candidate again. That's why, if in Mexico we hadn’t managed to conquer the judiciary as a movement, we'd probably be discussing President López Obrador being investigated, potentially as soon as President Sheinbaum left office, in addition to left-wing activists.
Many jurists and constitutionalists in Mexico refuse to understand that the context behind this judicial reform was lawfare. Some believe it's just political revenge by the former president, López Obrador. I think there is revenge behind his decision, but it's a revenge supported by more than 30 million people. So it's not a personal revenge, it's a collective revenge. It's a revenge that many of us decided to defend, to fight, and to conquer, and that's now a reality.
Now the executive branch is left-wing, the legislative branch is left-wing, and the leaders of the judicial branch are left-wing. There's no reason not to deepen a national project that more than 30 million people support.
L: Could you talk a little more about the challenges you encountered during the elections?
M: The biggest obstacle was that the media and the right decided to adopt the narrative of not going out to vote. They could have created some propaganda so that one or two right-wing ministers would enter the court, but that didn’t happen. Of course, we should be careful: we shouldn't be completely confident that the nine new justices will always be loyal to the left. For example, López Obrador, during his six-year term, proposed magistrates Alcántara Carrancá and Ríos Farjat, who began to take a very biased turn to the right. And there are prominent interests behind these people's unexpected turn.
So, be careful. I'm not saying that those people who agree with the left or agree in some way with the government's interests have to be applauders at all times. Great revolutionary processes have also been decomposed through a lack of internal criticism.
The Judiciary must continue to play a critical role. There must be a separation of powers. Conflicts of interest shouldn't exist. There's ideological agreement, but no situation that goes against the collective or the individual should be dismissed.
I believe — and it's a very personal belief, and one that I base on great ideologues on the left — that power should have checks and balances. But power should be regulated by the people. If the citizens come to agree with a government or a national project, then that's democracy.
Let's remember, when the left in Mexico was in the opposition, they were constantly intimidated. During the era of Salinas de Gortari and Ernesto Zedillo, more than 400 PRD members died. The rule of law must continue to be respected, not only for those of us who agree with the left, but also for people who are on the right.
The biggest challenge, I repeat, was the call not to go out and vote. The process was also very complex. You went to the polls and were given nine ballots. At the end of the day, we were able to find out who our candidates were because we have TikTok, WhatsApp, Facebook, X; because at the end of the day, we live in a community that's completely connected. But people who are originally from the mountains in Mexico, those who are from certain municipal capitals, couldn't find the profiles that were being proposed. These kinds of things should be modified.
L: This point about checks and balances is interesting. This term comes up a lot in the U.S. We have Congress, the Executive Branch, the President, and the Supreme Court, and the Constitution says that they create checks and balances. Right now, it seems that the Executive has a lot of power. People are asking, “Where are the other powers within this process?” But to your point: who is the check and balance? If we're talking about a Supreme Court, well, in the case of the United States, those are nine judges who aren't elected by the people. That’s not a check based on universal and equal suffrage.
M: U.S. politics is very different from Mexican politics. It's the country that claims to be about freedoms, but it's not a country that truly applies freedoms, either collective or individual.
Take the repression in California. This mobilization in California of our migrant brothers and sisters is an unregulated check and balance. What do I mean by unregulated? Because it's a way of limiting power that wasn’t officially legislated.
In Mexico, when people talk about checks and balances, they say it's about our freedoms. They say the left has completely taken over the country and is putting those freedoms in danger. Of course, the left hasn’t completely taken over. We have the United States on one side, the main country that defends liberal democracy and the hegemonic capitalist system. We must understand the national and international context.
In Mexico, we are living in stellar times of democracy. People feel represented by their government. What could be more democratic than that?
Then there’s the media and media narratives. They tell you, for example, that Cuba and Venezuela don't have freedom. But they don’t say anything about Trump and the U.S. These are the great inconsistencies, and you know it perfectly well. The land of freedoms bombed Iran when there wasn't a conflict between them.
L: Speaking of narratives. Some say that Morena is concentrating its power, and that it’s a bad thing if there’s a powerful party, because the concentration of power is bad. Perhaps in the United States, we're not used to a president with an 85% popularity rating, or a party that has a governor in 26 of the 32 states. Can you talk a little about this narrative?
M: In Mexico, during the neoliberal period, we lived in a perfect dictatorship. They talked to us about checks and balances, solid institutions, and autonomous constitutional bodies. But despite the fact that the law said it was autonomous, in execution and practice, it wasn't at all.
Morena has a slightly more transparent logic with the people, and people like that. Yes, power is being concentrated, and power is being concentrated because Morena is benefiting the vast majority of the Mexican people who were forgotten for decades. You conquer power not to feel powerful or to be different from others (besides, for us on the left, it would be inconsistent to say we're different when we're all the same biologically). We have to use the power to serve, to offer that power for the benefit of others, not for your benefit. That's the great process we're experiencing in Mexico.
I say it openly: not everyone in Morena thinks that way. Many people in Morena belong to the old regime and don't believe that power means serving others. They believe that power means serving oneself. And that's the great process we're undergoing: to have an internal critique, to vindicate the great causes and struggles of so many people for an alternative government, and thanks to the former president López Obrador, it has been able to materialize. If he hadn't existed, the left would not have the power it has today.
Sometimes people will then say, "Hey, but President López Obrador is the all-powerful one.” No. There is an entity more powerful than a man: the people.
Yes, power is being concentrated. Yes, today the left has crushed the right. Now our great challenge is to ensure that the left doesn't crush the left itself — that the values and the principles for which they have fought, and for which the new generations are now fighting, always come to the fore. That economic and factual interests are always regulated.
Some currents within Morena see the party more as an electoral party and not as a movement. Morena conceives of itself as a movement party. Yes, we compete. Yes, we want power. Yes, we have electoral strategies. Yes, we have political operations. But we have a movement. And that's what we must never set aside. The movement is idealism, utopia, ideology, Marxism, Castroism, Chavismo, and Leninism.
Today, our great enemy isn't the national right. It's the international right: it's Donald Trump. It's the international and transnational capital that wants to continue dominating Mexico. That's how they were throughout the neoliberal period.
Another interesting and important enemy to mention is those who are now part of our movement, who delegitimize, demotivate, and go against the pure, innate essence of the movement. But people aren't stupid. People know who jumps from one party to another (here in Mexico, they're called chapulines).
Now, I don't think all people who jump from one party to another are bad. I also believe people have the right to disagree.
L: It seems that right now in Mexico, political power is being used to help the majority of the population. And also, with this reform, power has more checks and balances that come from the population. There are more elections, and the people are more involved in the political process.
M: I fully agree with that. Some people might criticize what I'm saying as idealism, but if we read a little bit of history, the great revolutions have been made by the people. Not the rulers or the highest political figures of a country, but the people. So, In this case, with the judicial election, if you cast your vote of confidence for a judge, you also have the right to transparent information and accountability, and to say, “Hey, I voted for you, you got this position, and now I need you to tell me what you did in that position. What are your rulings? What are your criteria for resolving issues?” People aren't going to forget who they voted for.
They say that the judiciary is now becoming politicized. I believe the judiciary has never been free or immune from politicization. López Obrador had the ability in his morning press conferences to make people understand what the judiciary was doing against the majority.
For example, the Movistar telephone company is a multinational that owes around four billion pesos in taxes to the treasury. The case has already reached the court. Justice Lenia Batres says, “Yes, we have the capacity and the authority as a court to resolve this situation. And Minister Laynez Potisek says that since the court's structure isn't well-founded, they can't resolve it.
There’s also the case of Ricardo Salinas Pliego, owner of Televisión Azteca, Total Play, and others. He's a magnate in Mexico, and he’s a loan shark because he owns Banco Azteca and Electra. He also has a debt of more than 50 billion pesos. And several justices of the court, you know what they've done? They delay again and again. Nothing is resolved.
Ultimately, we do have a paternalistic state, and we have a strong concentration of power in the state. The left believes in the state. And if we believe in that figure of the state, then we need taxes, so those taxes can be returned to the people.
L: What are the next steps? What are you working on now?
M: The midterm elections are coming up in 2027, and so are the elections for the other half of the Federal Judiciary. I hope that in 2027, when both elections are held together, participation will increase because people can truly understand the importance of what judges do. People must understand and conceive how a judge, a magistrate, or a minister can change their lives.
Regarding Morena, we're currently in the process of affiliation. The goal is to recruit 10 million people and become the third-largest political party in the world. Only behind the Communist Party in China and a party in India that also has a huge number of members. Today, we're the strongest party on the entire American continent. It's a pretty ambitious goal, but I think we're already at six or seven million.
Regarding the workday, President Claudia Sheinbaum said that the country will transition to a 40-hour workday by 2030 at the latest. We are one of the countries, according to the OAS, that work the most and are paid the least on a continental level. It's important to be on the side of the working class, the proletariat, because that's where practically all of us come from.
Let's not ignore the strong interests of business groups in Mexico. If you and business groups can't somehow reach a consensus, they can threaten your government. The left has almost always been the opposition, at least in Mexico. And now that the left is in power, it shouldn't stray from the narratives it always fought for.
Electoral reform is also needed. I'm in favor of ending plurinominal elections; they're not sustainable, and they lend themselves to internal vices within parties. They're almost always political quotas, and getting rid of them would also strengthen participatory democracy.
Electricity reform must also be implemented. We've managed to remove Mexico's dependence on Iberdrola, an extremely powerful transnational corporation in the electricity sector.
There must also be tax reform. We are in a constant conflict because the ones who sustain the country's taxes are the middle class. That shouldn't be the case. It should be people like Ricardo Salinas Pliego, who can afford to pay a lot of taxes. The State can have higher revenues, but also higher expenditures. These expenditures should always benefit the vast majority of the Mexican people. In Morena, we have a motto: for the good of all, the poor first. And we have to fight for that and make people aware that if the poor or the most disadvantaged do well, all the other social classes will do well.
People have the right to a plate of food three times a day, and they have the right to public, secular, free, and popular education. They have the right to entertainment, to leisure, to culture, to music. Music is a right.
We have a president with an 85% approval rating, meaning that even people who voted against her now support President Sheinbaum's administration. That shouldn't be overlooked.
L: To conclude the conversation, I'd like to ask you about what you're thinking about things in the United States, especially the protests in Los Angeles, the ICE attacks against many people, but also the Mexican-American community.
M: It's hard to see migrant brothers and sisters being separated. There are heartbreaking videos of how the institution in charge of immigration issues in the United States is separating entire families. It leaves us asking why a man like Donald Trump won. There was talk about what this new Donald Trump process was going to be like, and yet Latino communities supported his candidacy.
I think we're now seeing the consequences of a man like him — and I'm going to say this openly, a fascist like Donald Trump — coming to the presidency. What's happening in the United States is fascism, a process that goes against all kinds of individual or collective freedom.
I want to send a hug of total solidarity to the people there. President Sheinbaum has created a path for those people who are being deported, so that they can be automatically welcomed with open arms in Mexico, so that they can have their rights fully guaranteed, even if they've been in the U.S. for more than 20 years.
At least a million Americans live here in Mexico, and their rights are more than safeguarded and recognized because they're also human, and that's something that shouldn't be lost. This bond and this humanist ideology shouldn't be lost. Human well-being, international well-being.
It fills me with pride to see people fighting for their rights, because they're also people who have given so much to the United States. And they're defending their rights, after all, aren't they?
We're seeing certain last-ditch struggles of a declining empire, of an American empire that's increasingly counterbalanced by the Russian empire and the Chinese empire, and I think that in a certain way, we're even experiencing a kind of Cold War 2.0.
These are quite complex times, quite delicate times. But behind this is the total interference of a degraded and decadent capitalist system ruled by the United States.
L: Yes, I agree. We are living in very interesting times with a lot of action, and that's why I think your perspective, our perspective, is very important.
M: Well, yes, it means condemning a system that continues to generate and cause great harm to the people of the world. That's what's interesting about what's happening in Mexico. We're not oblivious to this whole global issue that's happening, the rise of fascism, the rise of the far right, like Javier Milei in Argentina, in France, in Italy, in the United States. Mexico is a point of hope at the continental level for what a popular and left-wing government, truly left-wing, can be.
L: Thank you again, Mariano.
M: Luke, thank you very much for your invitation. It's always a space where I feel very comfortable, where the questions are always very well formulated by you, which is exactly what we want: to contribute to public narratives through a podcast. You have a friend here in Mexico, in the Benito Juárez municipality in Mexico City. Even if you're far away, we can continue communicating to talk and always debate about Mexican and international politics.
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