The Federal Telecommunications Institute (IFT) began its second interim presidency on March 1. Javier Juárez Mojica assumed the position of interim president, being the commissioner with the most time, replacing Adolfo Cuevas, who ended his term yesterday.
After the appointment, the telecommunications regulator is left with four commissioners of the seven it requires, for which the IFT had to modify its organic statute in order to issue resolutions.
For more than a year, the telecommunications regulatory body has been operating with five commissioners.
President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has shown his disagreement with the task of the organization and has even threatened to disappear. Last week he commented that he already contemplates some profiles for these vacancies, however until today he has not sent his proposals.
The IFT’s appointments are technical in nature, rather than political. The applicants are chosen after a public call and the application of an exam by an evaluation committee, formed by the Bank of Mexico and the Inegi.
In this sense, the Observatory of Telecommunications in Mexico (Observatel) promoted an injunction to request that President Andrés Manuel López Obrador comply with his constitutional obligation to propose to the Senate of the Republic the candidates for commissioners of the IFT, as well as of the Federal Commission of Economic Competition (Cofece). The amparo was admitted on February 25 by the Second District Court for Administrative Matters in Mexico City.
Since September 2021, Cofece has only four of the seven commissioners established by the Constitution, while the IFT has been in the same situation since this day, before the conclusion of the mandate of Commissioner Adolfo Cuevas that took place yesterday.
“It is essential that the head of the Executive select and propose as soon as possible to the Senate, from the lists that were sent to him for months by the Evaluation Committee, the candidates to fill the vacancies in both government bodies, because in addition to putting at risk the proper functioning and institutional solidity of these autonomous bodies, it is an obligation established at the constitutional level that should not be ignored by the President”, states the Observatel statement.
Observatel’s protection adds to the constitutional controversy that Cofece promoted in December 2021 and that also seeks to enforce the Constitution, since concluding with the selection of Commissioners is an essential condition to exercise all its powers. Currently the IFT has not presented a dispute on this matter.
