A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:
Mexicans went to the polls on Sunday for an election that will fundamentally change their democracy. Voters directly elected about 2,600 judges for the first time in history, but this is as controversial as it is consequential, with fears of politicizing every single federal judge in the country. NPR's Eyder Peralta joins us now from Mexico City. So how did everything go this weekend?
EYDER PERALTA, BYLINE: You know, as a process, it was smooth. But this is as complex an election as you get. Voting for the Supreme Court, for example, voters had to vote for nine justices from 64 candidates. Eduardo Cuellar (ph), who is 30, said he felt like he was taking a test that he didn't study for. He said he tried, but these elections opened up the judiciary to a bunch of candidates. The only big requirement was being a lawyer, so there were thousands of candidates. In a regular election, Cuellar said, you would know a candidate's party. You might even know a little about their life.
EDUARDO CUELLAR: We would know a track record, what they would want to vote for. With other branches, we got to choose a party that they have some ideological background. But in this case, I think we are in the blind.
PERALTA: But Cuellar voted anyway because he felt it was his civic duty. Across town, there was a protest of a few thousand people who said that they would not vote.
OLGA ESPERON: (Non-English language spoken).
PERALTA: And that's Olga Esperon (ph), who's 80. She said everyone running was, quote, "riffraff." And she felt like this election marked the end of Mexico's democracy.
ESPERON: (Non-English language spoken).
PERALTA: And she's in tears there. She said it's sad that our Mexico is like this because of a bunch of thieves.
MARTÍNEZ: I haven't heard the word chusma in a long time, Eyder.
(LAUGHTER)
PERALTA: That's right, riffraff.
MARTÍNEZ: So a little background. Where did this idea come from?
PERALTA: Well, it goes back to the previous president, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador. He had major beef with the judiciary. They voted against him in a previous presidential election that he lost. And then, as president, the Supreme Court ruled against one of his key policies. He changed that the judiciary was corrupt and rotten by nepotism. And some of that was true. This is a country where 95% of homicides, for example, go unpunished. And Lopez Obrador used his huge popularity to change the constitution, and now every single judge in this country will be directly elected by the people. This makes Mexico an outlier, the only country that does this.
MARTÍNEZ: All right, so is this really going to change things in Mexico?
PERALTA: I mean, most constitutional scholars will tell you that this is a bad idea. Judiciaries are supposed to be somewhat shielded from politics, and this throws the judiciary fully into the politics game. Civil society groups here have warned that some of the candidates have ties to organized crime or have served time for drug trafficking. But there's another side to this.
Polls have shown an overwhelming support for this reform. Mexico's new president, Claudia Sheinbaum, is a protege of Lopez Obrador, and she supports this reform. And so you have this divide in Mexico. The well off, who have had the courts successfully mediate their business disputes, hate this overhaul because they feel it gives the presidency more power and it opens up the judiciary to, as you heard earlier, to chusma, to riffraff. And then you have the majority of Mexicans, who say justice in this country has never existed for them, and it's about time that we did something, anything, to fix it.
MARTÍNEZ: NPR's Eyder Peralta is as far away from chusma as a person can get.
PERALTA: (Laughter).
MARTÍNEZ: He joins us from Mexico City. Eyder, thanks.
PERALTA: Thank you, A. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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