Mexico’s president stirs up war with electoral authority and widens authoritarian shift

The president accuses his country’s electoral authority of corruption and lack of transparency, urges supporters to criticize that body and calls for public acts of support for his own administration. Apart from any similarity with today’s Brazil, the description is of Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s Mexico, which this Sunday (27th) will see marches in defense of the politician.

The posters that call Mexicans to the streets have the president’s own photo and, according to the opposition, many of them were printed with money from state coffers – leading to accusations of illegal use of government propaganda money.

To a certain extent, the act seeks to show itself as a response to major protests that, on the last 13th, mobilized tens of thousands of people in different cities of the country, in repudiation of the bill presented by AMLO to Congress to reform the National Electoral Institute (INE).

It was the clearest demonstration of rejection of institutional advances to which the president is dedicated. In his fourth year in office —there are six, without the right to re-election—, the left-wing populist still has a high popularity index compared to other leaders in the region (67%, according to the Poligrama institute), but he sees growing resistance of some sectors to its management.

At the heart of this movement is a shift to authoritarianism with the right to controversial measures such as the increase in the functions that can be performed by the Armed Forces, the lack of action to contain a growing number of murdered journalists and now the project to reform the electoral body.

The president’s frictions with the body are old. In 2006, he did not accept defeat by Felipe Calderón (PAN) and organized a camp in the Zócalo, a square in the center of Mexico City, to ask for the recount of the votes. Six years later, he tried to do the same after losing to Enrique Peña Nieto. And since he was elected, in 2018, he has attacked INE on several occasions — the main one in the mid-term election, questioning the result that showed the opposition’s advance in the Legislative and in states.

AMLO, who quite frequently uses the expedient of calling plebiscites and referendums as a way of putting pressure on Parliament, still blamed the body for the low popular participation in the last consultation of the type, in April of this year.

Political scientist Alejandro Hope of the Mexico Institute, a division of the Wilson Center, sees two phenomena occurring at the same time. “On the one hand, there is a considerable number of Mexicans who have been opposing these institutional advances and think that the president is disconnected from the country’s real problems — violence, access to health, education, work. This focus of dissatisfaction is already large and can climb,” he says.

“On the other hand, we have a president who, with this demonstration, wants to put an end to this escalation preventively, but demonstrating that his popular approval is still high. “

The acts on Sunday —named 27N, in reference to the date— are endorsed by AMLO, who, in a statement on the 20th, justified the call in support of himself and his projects.

“If we didn’t have the support of the majority of Mexicans, especially the poorest, we would have already been defeated by the conservatives or had to submit to their whims and interests, so that we would become puppets of those who had become accustomed to stealing and holding power. economic and political in our country,” he said.

The date of the pro-government demonstration was chosen to coincide with the government’s accountability act to Congress. The march will start at the Ángel de la Independencia monument and head to the Zócalo, where AMLO will give a speech.

What may sound strange in other countries in Mexico is a constant in the post-Revolution period (1910). During the governments of the PRI (Institutional Revolutionary Party), which ruled for more than 70 years, from 1929 to 2000, it was common that, in times of difficulty, the leaders would call on the people to demonstrate their support in the streets.

“Today López Obrador tries to present himself as an outsider, but we must remember that his journey began at the PRI”, says Hope. The president later migrated to the PRD and today has his own party, Morena.

In the act, the populist must also try to refute other flags of those who have demonstrated against him — such as the rejection of the use of the Army in areas not directly linked to its role, such as public security and infrastructure works. The measure drew criticism from Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International. “Militaryizing public security will lead to more human rights violations,” the organization said in a statement.

For Cristina Reyes, from the civil association Mexico United Against Delinquency, there is a clear militarization of the country. “And not only for handing over public security to the Army, but also for increasing the power that the Force already has, which is dangerous and worrying,” she says. “It will be very difficult to reverse the militarization of public administration in the coming years.”

The inefficiency in combating violence linked to drug trafficking is also a point of dissatisfaction. So far, during AMLO’s tenure, there have been 112,000 murders.