For the first time in their history, Mexicans are called to the polls this Sunday, April 10 to decide on the continued power of their president. The country is indeed organizing a referendum to dismiss left-wing president Andrés Manuel López Obrador – known as AMLO – who took office in December 2018.
According to BBC Mundo, Voters will have to choose between: “[la révocation de] his mandate for loss of confidence” Where “[son maintien] to the Presidency of the Republic”.
The initiative, which required a reform of the Mexican Constitution in 2019, is “widely supported by the Lopezobradoristas”, explains the Querétaro edition of the daily The universal, but she was welcomed”with suspicion by the opposition, as well as by political analysts”.
According to BBC Mundothe turnout will be the main key to the ballot, because in order for the result of the recall referendum “be constraining”, it is necessary that at least 40% of the electorate votes. However, during a referendum organized in 2021 on the possibility of investigating former presidents, less than 8% of voters had moved, continues the Spanish-speaking site of the British media.
“Word of honor”
AMLO may have given its “word of honor” that he would accept the outcome regardless of the level of participation, he hardly seems to be taking any chances. According to the business daily The financial, his action is credited in the latest polls with 57% of favorable opinions.
“Whether you like him or he bothers you, Andrés Manuel López Obrador is going to win. We only the referendum will be held, but it will be a monumental success for the government”, launches columnist Alvaro Cueva in the Monterey daily Millennium.
The opponents of this recall referendum nevertheless consider “that this consultation is not necessary and that it only aims to strengthen the image of the president”, observe the BBC. An opinion shared by the columnist Salvador Camarena, who writes in The Country Mexico that the exercise consists of “legitimize” Lopez Obrador:
“The president has decided to strengthen his movement a few years before the presidential [qui se tiendra en 2024]. And the best way to do that is to ask your base for unconditional support.”
This ballot was not requested “neither by citizens nor by parliamentarians”but by the Head of State himself, further deplores The universal. For Camarena, the referendum wanted by AMLO “impoverished” therefore the public debate: “once again, the national discussion revolves around him and only him”.
Opposition ‘has no interest’ in trying to impeach him
And the discussion does not even really take place, reports the Mexican journalist León Krauze in the Washington Post :
“If you traveled to Mexico City these days, you would see campaign posters for President Andrés Manuel López Obrador plastered all over the city. The capital gives the impression of being in the middle of a decisive electoral battle. But there is a catch: no one is really campaigning against the Mexican president.”
L’opposition “has no interest in trying to impeach a popular president in the middle of his term”, explains Krauze, for whom the insistence with which AMLO insisted on organizing this referendum “would be ridiculous if the case were not worrying”.
This Sunday’s ballot could be taken for “a narcissistic pantomime”, writes the journalist in the American daily, but there is more worrying: according to him, AMLO and his party have repeatedly attacked the National Electoral Institute (INE), the public body which steers the elections, accusing it in particular of “not promoting the recall referendum” even though the necessary funds were not allocated.
Interior Minister Adán Augusto López even said recently that “all these so-called electoral authorities are going to go. We will see them leave with their tails between their legs.” Proof, for León Krauze, that the “true goal” of the referendum convened by AMLO is to“weakening the legitimacy of Mexican electoral institutions”.