MEXICO’S 2018 ELECTIONS

MEXICO’S 2018 ELECTIONS

INSTITUTIONAL SAFEGUARDS AND CHALLENGES

Princeton University, A 17 Louis A. Simpson International Building, Friday, April 13, 2018, 2:00-6:00pm

The 2018 electoral cycle in Mexico will take place at one of the most challenging moments in its history. Organized crime and political violence are at their highest point. Political corruption scandals at all levels of government have exposed the level of impunity in the country and the fragility of its rule of law.

Against all of this stand the two most successful transitional institutions that allowed the country to become an electoral democracy in the 1990s: the Instituto Nacional Electoral (INE) and the Tribunal Electoral del Poder Judicial de la Federación (TEPJF). The 2018 election will pose an interesting test to their strength and the legitimacy of the process.

By bringing together Lorenzo Cordova, President of INE, Reyes Rodríguez, Justice of the Electoral Tribunal of the Federal Judiciary, Javier Aparicio, Head of the Political Studies Division at CIDE in Mexico City, and Guillermo Trejo, Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Notre Dame, this colloquium will draw on their specialized expertise to analyze the conditions under which the upcoming electoral process will take place, as well as the relative confidence we can have on the fairness of the process.

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SESSION I

2:00-3:00pm

Electoral Institutional Safeguards

Welcome

Gabriela Nouzeilles, Director, Program in Latin America Studies, Princeton University

The national electoral Institute’s Role before the 2018 Mexican Elections

Lorenzo Córdova, President of the General Council of the National Electoral Institute (INE), Mexico

To what extent have the Decisions of the High Chamber of the TEPJF Enhanced Electoral Integrity in the 2017-2018 Elections in Mexico?

Reyes Rodríguez, Justice of the Electoral Tribunal of Federal Judicary (TEPJF), Mexico

Moderator:

Gabriela Nouzeilles, Princeton University

SESSION II

3:15-4:15pm

Elections, Violence, and Corruption

Mexico 2018: A Young, Normal Democracy?

Javier Aparicio, Associate Professor and Head of the Political Studies Division at CIDE, Mexico

Elections and Criminal Violence in Mexico: The elephant in the room

Guillermo Trejo, Associate Professor of Political Science and Faculty Fellow at the Kellogg Institute Studies, University of Notre Dame

Moderator: María Inclán

4:30-5:00pm Coffe Break

SESSION III

5:00-6:00pm

Round Table: Institutional Safeguards and Challenges

Javier Aparicio, CIDE

Lorenzo Córdova, INE

Reyes Rodríguez, TEPJF

Guillermo Trejo, University of Notre Dame

Moderador: Esteban Rossi Hansberg. Theodore A. Well ’29. Professor of Economics, Princeton University

Co-organizers: María Inclán and Esteban Rossi Hansberg

Presented by the Program in Latin American Studies

Free and open to the public.