The most important data that the referendum on the revocation of the mandate of Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) produced was that 15 million Mexicans voted in favor of the continuity of the president. Since the exercise was promoted by the government, the figure can be interpreted as AMLO’s hard vote or, if you prefer, a measure of the government’s ability to mobilize its vote. Is fifteen million a little or a lot?
It depends. Some of us think there aren’t that many, as they account for 16% of registered voters. A figure not negligible by any stretch of the imagination, but one that casts doubt on the president’s supposed enormous popularity.
This data suggests that we may be facing a well-known phenomenon in Mexico: the discrepancy between popularity and electoral support for the president. The lesson of the consultation is that although AMLO and his party seem unbeatable in the media and social networks, electorally it is perfectly possible to beat them.
Let’s start by saying that this revocation, officially called the “Process of Revocation of the Mandate of the President of the Republic Elected for the 2018-2024 Constitutional Period”, was a great pantomime.
The story goes back to August 2021, when the federal law on revocation of mandate was passed. This law was designed to give citizens a tool to show their disagreement with the executive and, ultimately, remove them from office peacefully and legally.
But it is already known that the road to hell is full of good intentions, as what was thought of as a tool of direct democracy to empower citizens was captured by the government to mobilize its bases. In fact, and against all logic, the revocation of the president’s mandate was promoted from the beginning by the AMLO government itself. The world upside down.
It is evident then that this exercise does not really qualify as a revocation consultation, as it does not respond to a genuine citizen demand. It was more of a government mobilization exercise of the kind we see in semi-authoritarian countries.
That said, however, from the political analysis, the exercise was of great value, as it allowed us to clearly observe the president’s true electoral muscle. I say electoral muscle and not popularity because if something became clear on the April 10th, it’s that the two are not the same. The difference is key, as one of the strategies AMLO uses to divide and paralyze the opposition is to claim that it has record levels of popularity.
This claim clearly proved to be a myth. Indeed, by this point in their six-year terms, Presidents Salinas, Zedillo, Fox and Calderón had similar approval ratings of around 60% (Peña Nieto’s precipitous drop in popularity is the exception, not the rule).
However, government spokespeople repeat every day that this president is the most popular in the history of Mexico. AMLO himself even likes to share research at his morning conferences that place him as one of the world’s leaders with the highest approval rating. This is not an accident, it is a strategy to create a pro-government narrative.
Another key aspect that the consultation left was to note that AMLO remains a politician very capable of bending the law to get what he wants. Examples abound. Let’s start by saying that the National Electoral Institute (INE) detected that one in four signatures of the petition to carry out the consultation was false.
Let’s continue with the fact that the president cut the INE’s budget to carry out the consultation under the argument of austerity. And let’s end by saying that neither he nor his party respected the electoral ban. In fact, the law states that parties cannot interfere in the repeal campaign.
I repeat: none of this is accidental. The political scientist Alberto Simpser, in his book “Why Governments and Parties Manipulate Elections: Theory, Practice, and Implications” points out that political actors in power can openly and frankly break the rules to send a powerful message: I have the power and audacity to break the law, and do what I want.
According to Simpser, “Electoral manipulation can potentially produce much more than simply winning the election in question. Specifically, excessive and blatant manipulation has a number of predicted effects that include, among others: discouraging opposition supporters from coming forward to vote or protest; […] dissuade political elites from opposing the ruling party or even entering the political fray”.
All cited produce key data. Firstly, AMLO’s hard vote is, to some extent, relatively small, not negligible, of course, but also not unbeatable.
Second, it is very likely that we are witnessing a case of deliberate broadening of AMLO’s image as a popular president based on two strategies. The first would be to build a narrative around his persona as an exceptionally popular president. We have already seen that the data indicate that this is a myth. Second, his way of acting as a politician very willing to bend the rules of the electoral game in plain sight, which would give him a psychological advantage.
Narrative and psychology are very important in political struggles, nobody denies that. But the numbers rule. And what they tell us is that it is possible to win this president electorally. So is AMLO a kind of Wizard of Oz of Mexican politics?
