Confusion and concern loom over Mexico's judicial election

Monterrey, Mexico – There will be more than 7,000 candidates. More than 2,600 open positions. And at least six ballots per person to weigh them all.

On Sunday, Mexico embarks on an election believed to be the first of its kind: Voters will cast ballots for all of the country's judges, half now and half in 2027.

Judges of all levels will be in the running. Some candidates are competing to serve on the Supreme Court. Others are aiming for federal district or circuit courts. Still more are competing for the thousands of open positions on the state and local levels.

By one estimate, if a voter spent five minutes researching each federal candidate on their ballot, they would need more than 15 hours to complete the task.

Therein lies the dilemma, according to many election experts. While the Mexican government has touted the election as a milestone in democratic participation, critics fear the vote could in fact be vulnerable to political manipulation or criminal groups.

Julio Rios Figueroa, a law professor at the Autonomous Technological Institute of Mexico (ITAM), considers the election a step towards "democratic erosion".

He fears the vote "will eliminate the judiciary as a countervailing factor" that balances other more overtly political branches of government, like the presidency and Congress.

Then, of course, there's the sheer challenge of keeping track of all the candidates.

“For a citizen who has the time and the interest, it's a very difficult task," Ríos Figueroa said. "Now, there are many citizens who don't have the time or the interest."

Before Mexico decided to elect its judges, the choice of judicial leaders was made through internal government channels.

Supreme Court justices, for instance, were nominated by Mexico's president and approved in the Senate. A judicial commission, meanwhile, selected the other federal judges, evaluating candidates through exams, coursework and experience.

But last year, a constitutional amendment paved the way for Sunday's controversial election.

It was a final, parting victory for outgoing President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, the political mentor of Mexico's current leader Claudia Sheinbaum.

Lopez Obrador had long clashed with Mexico's Supreme Court. During his six-year term, many of his signature policy proposals had come before the court.

In 2023, for instance, it ruled that Lopez Obrador could not use "national security" as an excuse to fast-track the construction of a tourist train in the Yucatan Peninsula.

Barely a month later, it also struck down a bill Lopez Obrador backed that would have slashed the funding of the country's electoral agency.

In response, Lopez Obrador criticised the judicial system for serving the interests of the political and economic elites.

Daniela Arias, a coordinator for the pro-democracy think tank Laboratorio Electoral, remembers Lopez Obrador railing against the judges at his daily news briefings.

“The president's questions in his morning press conferences were: What legitimacy do these [judges] have, versus what the people decided at the polls? Why are they holding up my projects?” Arias said.

With less than a month left in his presidency, Lopez Obrador decided to do something about his complaints. He pushed forward with his long-desired reforms to the judiciary — including the imposition of mandatory elections.

But the changes required a constitutional amendment. Still, Lopez Obrador was head of the Morena party, the most powerful force in contemporary Mexican politics.

Wielding his sway, he was able to secure the backing of both the Senate and the majority of Mexico's states, allowing the reforms to become law.

“That’s when this bidding war began,” Arias said of the elections.

From the beginning, the reforms were controversial. Thousands of court workers went on strike to protest the constitutional amendment. Some protesters even stormed the Senate building.

Critics accused the Morena party of seeking to strengthen its grip on power by electing sympathetic judges. Already, the party holds majorities in both chambers of Congress, as well as the presidency.

Opponents also feared the elections would lead to unqualified candidates taking office.

Under the new regulations, candidates must have a law degree, experience in legal affairs, no criminal record and letters of recommendation.

Candidates also had to pass evaluation committees, comprised of representatives from the executive, legislative and judicial branches of government.

And yet, some of the final candidates have nevertheless raised eyebrows. One was arrested for trafficking methamphetamine. Another is implicated in a murder investigation. Still more have been accused of sexual misconduct.

Arias suspects that some candidates slipped through the screening process due to the limited resources available to organise the election.

She noted that the National Election Institute had less than 10 months to arrange the elections, since the reforms were only passed in September.

“The timing is very rushed," she said.

One of the most controversial hopefuls in Sunday's election is Silvia Delgado, a lawyer who once defended the cofounder of the Sinaloa Cartel, Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzman.

She is now campaigning to be a judge in Ciudad Juarez, in the border state of Chihuahua.

Despite her high-profile client, Delgado told Al Jazeera that the scrutiny over her candidacy is misplaced: She maintains she was only doing her job as a lawyer.

"Having represented this or that person does not make you part of a criminal group," she said.

Rather, she argues that it is Mexico's incumbent judges who deserve to be under the microscope. She claimed many of them won their positions through personal connections.

"They got in through a recommendation or through a family member who got them into the judiciary," she said.

President Sheinbaum has likewise framed the elections as part of the battle against nepotism and self-dealing in the judicial system.

"This is about fighting corruption," Sheinbaum said in one of her morning news briefings. "This is the defence of the Mexican people for justice, for honesty, for integrity."

How effective Sunday's elections are in achieving those ideals remains to be seen. Voter turnout is expected to be low, according to Arias.

“Participation is not expected to surpass 10 to 20 percent," Arias explained.

That projection is a significant drop from normal election turnouts, she added. "In Mexico, participation is usually around 60 percent.”

The Judicial Electoral Observatory, a monitoring body formed by organisations including Laboratorio Electoral, has also noted that there are more vacancies in some areas than in others during this election cycle.

In Mexico City, for example, there are 773 candidates running for 168 local positions, while in the port city of Campeche, there are only 20 hopefuls vying for 11 local seats.

And in the state of Durango, there are 49 candidates for 49 open spots, leaving little doubt about the outcome.

With the election likely to herald widespread change in the judicial arena, Rios Figueroa fears "a significant portion of the legal knowledge" in the country will be lost as veteran judges are replaced.

That mass turnover could make an already inefficient judicial system worse, he warned. “It takes time to build consistency and regularity in conflict resolution."

He predicted turbulence in the legal system in the years ahead. “There will be more erratic decisions, more inefficient service, and probably more corruption."