President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s term only ends in 2024, but Mexicans were asked to go to the polls this Sunday (10) to say whether they want the leftist to continue in office.
The call came from AMLO himself, as the leader is known. The recall referendum figure has been in the Constitution since 2019, but it is not mandatory and has never been used. The mechanism can be activated by the president — through the collection of signatures, carried out by his party — or by Congress.
Since the beginning of his administration, the leftist has been using his high popularity as a resource to pressure Parliament in favor of reforms he would like to see passed. The most recent survey, released last Sunday (3) by the Poligrama Institute, gives it 66.7% approval; another, from Mitofsky, indicates 60.4%.
It is not surprising, then, that a third poll, commissioned by the newspaper El Financiero, shows that 52% of Mexicans say the referendum is unnecessary. In the event of AMLO’s defeat, with a “no” majority, Congress has 30 days to decide who will end the term. For the result to be valid, however, the participation of more than 40% of the electorate is required. As voting is not mandatory, Mexican electoral authorities estimate that less than 30% of voters turn out.
In this scenario, the referendum would only serve for the president to use the result in his political narrative.
When he doesn’t get enough support in Congress to approve his main reforms, López Obrador has appealed to plebiscites, whose results, which are generally positive, even with low participation, serve to build the president’s figure as an interpreter of the popular voice.
This was the case with consultations about the interruption of works on a new international airport in Mexico City (AMLO wants to build a different one), the construction of the so-called Maya Train, in the south of the country, and the authorization for a hydroelectric plant in Tabasco, state leftist leader’s birthplace.
In August of last year, the referendum was about whether Mexicans wanted former presidents to be investigated and tried for possible corruption crimes. Consultation is unnecessary in a country where there are laws that provide for such a procedure, but the exposure of the reputation of former leaders was put up for debate. The “yes” won, but with the participation of only 7.8% of voters – among those who voted, 97.7% said they were in favor of the polls, while 1.5% were against, and 0.7% annulled.
AMLO maintains that the referendums “reaffirm democracy and the idea that the people are in power.” A victory this Sunday, however, would not only serve political ends. The president has already expressed more than once his willingness to carry out a new energy reform, with nationalization and less foreign investment in the area, in addition to an emphasis on solar and wind energy.
As the project is already in Congress, the weight of the result of the consultation is explained in a scenario in which the intentions of the text have caused concern among companies involved in the production of oil in the country.
Mexico’s GDP growth forecast for 2022, which was at 2.9% at the beginning of the year, dropped to 1.2%, according to BBVA bank, taking into account the prospects of this reform and the effects of the war in Ukraine. . In its kind of morning theater —the so-called “mañaneras”, which were initially supposed to be press conferences-, AMLO has basically been doing electoral propaganda, attacking NGOs and public institutions such as the INE (the electoral authority), the Supreme Court and the intelligence agency of State.
Journalists have already spoken out in relation to these events, putting their backs to AMLO. Today, they still protest against the lack of security to work. In 2022 alone, nine reporters were killed in the exercise of their profession — one of them had exposed the threats he suffered in a “mañanera”.
In recent weeks, the president clashed with a journalist, Carlos Loret de Mola, who disclosed that the Mexican leader’s son lived for two years in a house in Houston (USA) that belonged to a businessman with business dealings with state-owned Pemex. Last Sunday there was a protest in the streets of downtown Mexico City against the plebiscite.
