After power reforms were defeated, Mexico’s president called it “treason.”
Mexican senators rejected constitutional electricity reforms at the centre of diplomatic tensions with the United States, dealing a setback to President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who accused his opponents of abandoning the country on Monday.
Lopez Obrador pushed for the reforms to strengthen the state-owned energy company and undo the effects of previous governments’ deregulation, which he argues benefitted private businesses.
His intentions, however, upset the US and Canada, raising worries that Mexico might be breaking its trade agreements by favouring state-run enterprises that are largely reliant on fossil fuels.
The president’s Morena party failed to gain the two-thirds majority needed to change the constitution during a long session in the lower chamber of Congress on Easter Sunday.
“An act of treason against Mexico by a number of lawmakers who, instead of protecting the interests of the people and the nation, opted to be loud advocates of foreign enterprises,” Lopez Obrador said.
Sergio Gutierrez, the president of the lower house, said that the measure had 275 votes in favour and 223 votes against it, with no abstentions.
Gutierrez had previously accused the opposition of wanting to remain “imperialist lackeys” in foreign firms’ service.
However, conservative National Action Party member Jorge Romero claimed that the law would set the country “back 50 years” in terms of environmental protection.
The amendments would have given the state-owned Federal Electricity Commission (CFE) at least 54 percent of the electricity market, which the government claims is necessary to keep power costs from rising.
The measure also proposed establishing a governmental monopoly on lithium mining, a critical component of electric vehicle batteries.
With defeat imminent, Lopez Obrador introduced separate legislation on Sunday to combine lithium industry changes into a mining law, which may be passed with a simple majority because it is not a constitutional amendment.
