Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has failed to get enough votes to pass a constitutional reform limiting private and foreign firms in the electrical power industry.
Lopez Obrador’s National Regeneration Movement (MORENA) and its allies were not able to secure the necessary two-thirds vote majority needed in the 500-seat lower house of Congress, mustering just 275 votes, reports Reuters, well short of the 333 votes needed for constitutional changes.
Obrador wanted to roll back the constitutional reforms brought about by his predecessor in 2013 that liberalized the electricity market. Obrador wanted to limit private and foreign firms in the electrical power industry.
On Monday, López Obrador called the opposition members of Congress who voted against the reform traitors, claiming foreign firms “bought the legislators,” according to USNews.
“Yesterday a group of legislators committed an act of treason,” López Obrador said. “Instead of defending the interests of the nation, of the people, they openly defended foreign firms that rob and prey.”
Alejandro Moreno, the leader of the old ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party, shot back “they are the traitors, and they haven’t solved the crime problem and have left women abandoned,” referring to increasing homicides against women in Mexico.
Nationalizing the mining of lithium
The Mexican president already has been eyeing something that was part of the bill that was defeated on Sunday – Lithium mining. On April 8, Obrador said he would seek to change mining laws to secure the country’s lithium for the nation if his constitutional reform to boost state control of the power market failed.
The bill submitted for debate Monday would create a state-owned company for lithium mining, something López Obrador said would “nationalize lithium.”
There is only one lithium mine in Mexico – operated by a Chinese firm, and it is not yet close to starting production. The mine will likely be taken over by the government if the bill passes on a simple majority.
The mine is in an area containing lithium deposits discovered by the Canadian company Bacanora in the northeastern Mexican state of Sonora.
