MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - The&nbsp;Mexican&nbsp;lower house of&nbsp;Congress&nbsp;on Tuesday rejected a controversial&nbsp;electoral&nbsp;reform&nbsp;backed by the president, after critics said the proposal had the potential to undermine the country's&nbsp;electoral&nbsp;independence.
With 269 votes in favor, 225 votes against, and one abstention, the leading party and its allies fell short of the two-thirds majority needed to pass the bill, which sought to convert the National&nbsp;Electoral&nbsp;Institute (INE) into a smaller and more powerful body of elected officials, alongside other political changes.
Still, President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has already initiated an alternative route to get his&nbsp;reform&nbsp;through, having hours earlier sent a new proposal to the lower house. This does not include constitutional changes, and therefore requires only the simple majority the ruling coalition holds.
The new bill, as anticipated,&nbsp;is also somewhat less ambitious, with its main objective to reorganize and redefine the administrative tasks of the INE, as well as closing offices that will allow $150 million a year in savings.
The rejected bill was seen by the political opposition as a threat to democracy and organizations such as Human Rights Watch said that the "regressive" initiative&nbsp;put at risk the continuation of "free and fair" elections.
Lopez Obrador, known by his acronym AMLO, has defended his proposal as a way to strengthen democracy and reduce the influence of economic interests in politics.
In mid-November, a massive protest against the&nbsp;president's&nbsp;electoral&nbsp;reform&nbsp;brought tens of thousands of people to the streets, prompting a counter-march led by the president to support it.
Still, AMLO's insistence on approving his bill before he leaves office in 2024 has had an unexpected result of uniting a fractured opposition and emboldening it ahead of next year's regional elections.
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(Reporting by Diego Ore; Writing by Isabel Woodford; Editing by Sandra Maler)

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Mexican Congress rejects president's electoral reform bid