For starters, the lawmakers proposed an alternative minimum tax along with a slight increase in gasoline taxes. But the two were so watered down that they barely added up, according to the government’s figures, to a mere 1 percent of GDP—an insignificant increase. But the electoral reforms are likely to lead to even bigger problems, threatening the validity of future elections and placing democratic Mexico near other Latin American nations like Bolivia, Ecuador, Nicaragua and Venezuela, where ostensibly independent institutions increasingly operate at the mercy of their nations’ leaders.

The putative reform is the result of collusion between the three main parties—PAN, PRI and PRD—to virtually eliminate the possibility of anyone else entering the electoral arena. Lawmakers, trying to explicitly prohibit independent candidates from running for public office, have made it practically impossible to create new parties. They also established a series of arbitrary and authoritarian restrictions on the content of campaign advertising, speeches and exchanges among candidates. All these changes were rammed through the Congress as constitutional amendments, exempting them from court appeal or international jurisdiction.

At the same time, positive reforms—bans on the purchase of media air time for campaign purposes and the allotment of state-owned time to parties during electoral periods—are largely tainted by serious omissions in the law. There is still no regulation in Mexico requiring fairness in news coverage of campaigns. Blatantly corrupt Mexican news organizations regularly take cash and other payment in exchange for publishing interviews with politicians and coverage of their activities. And more than a decade after the beginning of the country’s democratization, there is still no current-affairs program on national prime-time television. So by prohibiting the purchase of TV time, the three parties have created an insurmountable barrier to political newcomers. Those foolish enough to try to climb up the ranks of the three existing, but terribly discredited, parties would never be able to make themselves known to the public.

But the most serious threat to the Mexican electoral process is the lawmakers’ defenestration of the widely respected Federal Electoral Institute, or IFE Counselors, the same people who organized last year’s presidential vote. While the country’s foremost electoral authority undoubtedly committed serious public-relations mistakes during last year’s elections, it stands out as one of Mexico’s most respected institutions. Its credibility ratings at home are regularly double or triple those of the Congress or the three political parties, and it shepherded Mexico’s body politic through a severe crisis in 2006, when losing PRD presidential candidate Andrés Manuel López Obrador refused to accept his defeat and took his battle to the streets.

Now the same people who certified that last year’s vote was free and fair, and that Calderón won, are being fired for … exactly that reason. Their removal, as everyone in Mexico acknowledges, is a sop from the PRI to the PRD in exchange for passing the other electoral reforms, which Calderón’s PAN reluctantly accepted in order to get the lackluster tax reform done. Unfortunately, the attack on the IFE’s autonomy is not an isolated event in the region. Throughout Latin America, governments and strongmen are attempting to usurp the authority of independent institutions. Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez has proposed the abolition of his country’s central bank’s independence, submitting a constitutional reform allowing the president to use Venezuela’s international reserves as he sees fit. Electoral commissions are being packed in Bolivia, Ecuador, Nicaragua, Venezuela and, according to some, Argentina. Suddenly, Mexico seems enthusiastic about joining this club. It shouldn’t, and if anyone should not lead it in that direction, it is Felipe Calderón. Not only because he is a committed democrat, but because if anybody needs to defend Mexico’s fragile electoral institutions, it is the man who owes his presidency to them.