President Sheinbaum arrives to vote for the judiciary election at the center for voting in Mexico City – June 1, 2025 / Photo taken by Marco Ugarte / Associated Press. Source: Los Angeles Times
The 2025 Mexican Judicial Election
6/4/2025 (written by Aylo) 5 minute read time – On June 1, 2025, the Mexican government held its first ever nation-wide judicial elections; with over 2,600 positions up for grabs, nine of them being for the Supreme Court. Notably, this election made Mexico one of the few countries in the world (along with Bolivia) to elect all judges through a direct popular vote, rather than appointment by the executive or legislative branch.
Preliminary Results
Official results for the 2025 Mexican judicial election will not be finalized until June 15. However, preliminary results reported by Mexico’s National Electoral Institute (Instituto Nacional Electoral, INE) offer some insights as to turnout rates and trends at the top of the ballot. While the election ran relatively smoothly, voter turnout was extremely low —with an estimated 12-13% of eligible voters showing up at the polls on Sunday. As illustrated in the figure below, some states (like Coahuila and San Luis Potosí) had notably higher than average rates of turnout, while others were far below average, particularly where opposition to the ruling party is strongest (Guanajuato and Jalisco). Overall, in the Mexican newspaper Reforma, an analysis by CIDE analyst Javier Aparicio argues that there is a general pattern of higher turnout in southern states that are dominated by MORENA.
Mexico’s Next Supreme Court
As expected, preliminary results suggest that the ruling political party, MORENA, stands to gain substantially more control over Mexico’s Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation (Suprema Corte de Justicia de la Nación, SCJN) and numerous other judicial offices in the 2025 Mexican judicial election. In the SCJN, specifically, the top five women and top four men with the highest allocation of votes will be selected as ministers on the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation (Suprema Corte de Justicia de la Nación, SCJN). Among these candidates, the individual with the highest vote will be selected as the president of the Supreme Court. At the time this article was posted and according to INE, the top five women candidates were as follows:
- Lenia Batres Guadarrama – 4.94%
- Yasim Esquivel Mossa – 4.38%
- Loretta Ortiz Ahlf – 4.2%
- Maria Estela Ríos Gonzalez – 3.94%
- Sara Irene Herrerias Guerra – 2.56%
The top four male candidates were as follows:
- Hugo Aguilar Ortiz – 5.2%
- Giovanni Azael Figueroa Mejia – 2.97%
- Irving Espinosa Betanzo – 2.84%
- Aristides Rodrigo Guerrero Garcia – 2.54%
Note: Percentages are approximate based on the total number of votes calculated at the time of publication, according to INE’s preliminary data.
As noted, final tallies for all judicial positions should be available by June 15th, though down ballot races will be reported after federal judicial election results are completed. For the SCJN race, all candidates had close ties to the ruling MORENA party, former president and party leader Andres Manuel López Obrador (2018-2024), his protege, and current-President Claudia Sheinbaum (2024-2030). For example, Batres, Esquivel, and Ortiz Ahlf were already sitting members (“en funciones”) on the nation’s highest court. They were nominated by President López Obrador in 2023, 2019, and 2022, respectively. Meanwhile, Ríos González and Herrerías Guerra are both close allies of President López Obrador.
Electoral Controversies
The 2025 Mexican judicial election was mired in controversy from the moment President López Obrador pushed through the reforms to elect all the country’s judges in a lame duck session one month prior to the start of President Sheinbaum’s term on October 1, 2024. In the weeks and months that followed, there were massive protests from judges and judicial sector personnel who were to be replaced under the reform. For many observers, the reforms also appeared to be a power grab by López Obrador and an effort to give MORENA greater control over the judicial branch. Throughout his term, the SCJN and other federal judges had served as one of the few checks on his policies and actions.
In the days before the election, there were also significant controversies surrounding the use of “cheat sheets” or acordeones, causing charges of electoral manipulation by MORENA in what was supposed to be a nonpartisan election. Unsurprisingly, the names included on these “cheat sheets” almost perfectly predicted the results of the current preliminary election results. As a result, many critics have pointed to the threat that partisan interference in judicial elections could pose to Mexico’s democracy.
Picture of “cheat sheet” or acordeones, titled Poder Judicial del Pueblo (Judiciary of the People) / Source: Proceso
Final Observations
As votes continue to be tallied, these preliminary results offer insights as to the current trends in the race to control Mexico’s judicial branch. MORENA-backed candidates are clearly favored to win, giving Mexico’s ruling party substantially more influence over judicial decision-making over the next several years. At the same time, questions are sure to persist regarding the conduct of the election —including charges of manipulation, misinformation, and coercion— as well as the legitimacy of Mexico’s new judicial branch. What is certain is that Mexico is experiencing a historical transition regarding its institutional foundations, arguably with the future of Mexican democratic politics at stake.
Sources
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https://cnnespanol.cnn.com/mexico/live-news/elecciones-judiciales-mexico-2025-resultados-orix
Dresser, D. (2025, 2 de junio). Denuncia de opacidad en los resultados de las elecciones judiciales. Reforma.
https://www.reforma.com/aplicacioneslibre/preacceso/articulo/default.aspx?__rval=1&urlredirect=https://busquedas.gruporeforma.com/buscar/reforma/documentos/VisorArticulos.aspx?idComptto=6&sIdIdentificadorParm=6s8697368d&idproducto=3&id=2530551&tipoElemento=/impresa/&text=denise%20dresser&imgUrl=https://hemerotecalibre.reforma.com/20250602/interactiva/RPRI20250602-009.JPG
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https://emeequis.com/secretos/circulan-en-morena-resultados-para-scjn-tribunal-de-disciplina-y-tepjf/
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