It is the first time in history that the Mexican people have been asked whether they want their president to continue or to retire. The possibility for a referendum on the withdrawal of a president’s mandate, a so-called revocación, is in the Mexican constitution but has never been invoked before. The Mexican president is a strong supporter of plebiscites.
Corrupt
“The main importance of a revocación is that it can be used against a president who is corrupt or oppressing the people, as has happened in the past,” explains political analyst Eduardo Huchim. “If the electorate could have used this powerful tool then, it could have sent the president home,” said the former member of the National Electoral Institute (INE). “Given the popularity that López Obrador still enjoys among Mexicans, they will not revoke his mandate.”
Opponents find the exercise in democracy on Sunday 10 April unnecessary because López Obrador has been democratically elected and can just finish his term. The referendum costs a lot of taxpayers’ money and in their view it only serves to confirm the popularity of the president. According to opinion polls, it fluctuates around 60%. AMLO took office in 2018 with 53 percent of the vote. His term in office expires in 2024.
obstacle
While the president is touting the referendum as a democratic exercise, to the horror of his critics, the president wants to ax the independent institution INE that organizes the elections. He would see this as an obstacle to his reforms, which include attention for the more than 50 million Mexicans who live below the poverty line and for the abolition of privileges of government officials and corruption.
“The INE is one of the most important pillars of Mexican democracy,” columnist Enrique Quintana told El Financiero newspaper. Closing down or reforming the INE could mean, in his view, that government power is no longer alternated between different parties. The return to a one-party monopoly, as the PRI had for 70 years, is then a risk.