oA spokesman for the cathedral was promoting it through advertisements for circular judicial elections when a smoke smog was in the sky in the afternoon in Nagácán, the capital of Sinaloa state of Mexico. The stirring flashes cross the square.

After months of cartel clashes, Sinaloa is on the brink. However, on June 1, IT and other regions of Mexico will begin electing every judge in the country through a mass vote, from local district courts to Supreme Court justices.

It was a world-first democratic experiment, but prompted people to warn of low turnout, political power and infiltration of organized crime.

Reform was the most radical move of the Morena Party and its allies, as they won super tribute to Congress last year, allowing them to change the constitution at will.

Few people disagree that Mexico’s judicial system needs to change. Justice is inaccessible to many, corruption is commonplace, impunity is rampant.

Morena claims that its reforms will address these issues by making the judiciary react to popular opinions.

But critics say it will overturn the separation of power and by opening the door to ineligible candidates whose campaigns may be supported by opaque interests, including organized criminal organizations, that it may exacerbate the problems it seeks to solve.

Delia Quiroa, a well-known advocate for the disappearance of Mexico, dislikes reform. But she admitted that it gave her a chance to be a federal judge she wouldn't have.

This is just the moment when her brother Roberto disappeared on March 10, 2014, and it was the latest unexpected turn of his life.

Quiroa was born in Culiacán, but moved to the border of Tamaulipas as a child. She has been learning to become an engineer, but as she ages, she shows no signs of brotherhood, she is a lawyer training that forces the authorities to take action.

The threat from the criminal group eventually displaced her family. Then, last year, they moved back to Sinaloa, which has been relatively calm for years due to the dominance of the same name Cartel.

Quiroa smiled and said, "People have said that Narcos of Sinaloa left the public (their battle). "Then the conflict began."

In July 2024, Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada established Sinaloa Cartel with Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán, and U.S. authorities were detained by U.S. authorities along with one of Guzmán's sons after landing on a small Texas plane.

El Mayo accused El Chapo's son of betrayal and handed him over to the U.S. authorities. Now a faction led by El Mayo's son is launching a war with the son of another son who is free in Mexico.

By the time the conflict entered its ninth month, it had died or disappeared over 2,000.

This makes judicial elections even more complicated.

“The violence has happened to the campaign,” Quiroa said. “You can’t always find people on the street.”

The city's central market was Quiroa's goal for the day. Friends and family came and distributed the brochure with her logo: a spade and a mallet crossed the scale of justice.

"I tried to explain that I had no political or economic interest in this," Quiroa said. "The only thing I want is change in this country."

But the responses did not eliminate the concerns about the uninformed vote on June 1 as Quiroa bounced between market stalls.

Unlike other elections, political parties cannot support candidates, and even if the candidates clearly have a party affiliation, they cannot publicly claim to be partisan affiliation.

Radio and television shows are also banned, meaning that largely unknown candidates are limited to distributing flyers and posting on social media.

Then there are a lot of candidates. Voters will face at least six votes, some with dozens of names on them, but few others. Quiroa sighed, "It looks like an exam."

Even the enthusiastic supporter of reform – the butcher behind a pile of cow hooves, who celebrates the election as an opportunity to "stop the robbery" – cannot name the candidate.

Others are skeptical, if not cynical. "I won't vote for candidates I don't know," said a shoe factory that is reading a dog biography of 19th-century President Benito Juárez. "Like I don't know what that is, I won't have a meal. It's common sense."

According to the president of the National Election Academy, voter turnout is expected to be less than 20%.

Even if Morena is not allowed to support candidates, many believe that the ruling party will use its unparalleled capabilities to mobilize voters to help its preferred candidate, especially for the Supreme Court, which is often a check on Morena's executive power, as well as a new discipline forum that will keep judges consistent.

"Morena wants to accumulate all his strength," Shoe Flash said. "They don't want to leave crumbs for others."

However, other interests, including organized crime, may also seize opportunities.

Civil society organization Defensorxs has identified various "highly risky" candidates, including a lawyer, who is El Chapo's lawyer and a former state prosecutor for Michoacán, who is accused of allegedly involved in the murder of two journalists.

"I don't think people have managed to figure out who the candidates are, and what the actual situation of each position is," said Marlene León Fontes of Iniciativa Sinaloa. "People will vote based on individual connections or political parties.

“It’s a blind date for democracy,” she said.

If Quiroa takes office as judge, she says she will be an "iron fist" for authorities against corruption and negligence - especially in search of those registered as more than 120,000 people who disappeared and identify 72,000 bodies in Morgis, Mexico.

"It is the feeling of being tortured by the authorities that I should protect my feelings to make me a candidate," Quiroa said.

However, as far as Quiroa knows, she is the only candidate to look for relatives from thousands.

“I hope there are more — and victims of all kinds of lawyers and human rights defenders,” Quiroa said. “But many people say they don’t want to be part of the destruction of the justice system.”

Quiroa shares their anxiety.

"It's an experiment," she said. "And we don't know how it will go."