- Marcos Gonzalez Diaz
- BBC News World correspondent in Mexico
image source, EPA
Success or failure? Victory or defeat?
The readings given to the results of the first mandate revocation consultation in Mexico are, as expected, very different depending on who interprets them.
This Sunday’s referendum to decide whether Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (AMLO) Whether or not he continued in his position as president, he reaffirmed the high approval he maintains in the assessment polls: almost 92% voted for his permanence.
However, the consultation did not attract enough Mexicans to make its result binding: less than 18% of the electorate participated, very far from the 40% required for it to be mandatory.
And it is this participation figure – together with the fact that the opposition had called for abstention instead of voting to recall the president, who actively promoted the referendum – the battle horse used now to decide if the result is a definitive accolade to the management and image of AMLO or rather the opposite.
What is certain is that the echo of what happened this Sunday will continue to be present and will somehow fly over the remainder of AMLO’s mandate until the end of 2024, who will remember that he was the first president in the country’s history to put his position at the will of the Mexicans in the middle of the government Y what he emerged victorious.
Who won or lost in the consultation?
The results of the consultation were more or less as expected, just as there were no surprises in its interpretation by supporters and opponents of the initiative.
Photo: Marcos González / BBC Mundo
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Follow AMLO:91.85% (15.15 million votes)
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let it be revokedhis mandate: 6.44% (1.06 million votes)
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Stake: 17.77% (40% needed to be binding)
Source: INE (99.97% of tally sheets computed)
The opposition focused on remembering that the figure of 15 million people who voted this Sunday for AMLO’s continuity is far from the 30 million who supported him when he won the presidential elections.
“Brunette [el partido de AMLO] he did not get half of the votes he got in 2018 with gifts or threats. The message to the president was very clear: enough of the circus, brunette and theater,” tweeted the president of the National Party (PAN), Marko Cortés.
For Ricardo Anaya, former presidential candidate for the same party in 2018, the consultation was “a complete failure” and remarked that “eight out of 10 Mexicans” decided not to participate “in the fraud”, while highlighting how the number of votes achieved by AMLO has been decreasing in the last electoral appointments.
Being rigorous, making comparisons about votes and participation is complicated given that this recall referendum is unprecedented in Mexico and is unprecedented. In which last year he raised the possibility of judging former presidents, 8% voted. In the midterm elections held two months earlier, 52% participated.
“Don’t be fooled. I was telling you that the elections should be compared like this: intermediate with intermediate, presidential with presidential and consultations with consultations. Well, in the consultation on the former presidents, a little more than 6 million came out, and now 15 million in favor of AMLO” , tweeted the sociologist and political analyst Julian Atilano.
image source, Archyde.com
AMLO, for his part, celebrated the results and described the consultation as “complete success”. This Monday, he once again thanked the vast majority who voted for his permanence. “I do have a way to pay them: by never betraying them and continuing to work for the good of the people,” she said.
Questioned about the number of votes achieved and the participation, AMLO pointed out, as many other times, the National Electoral Institute (INE) as responsible for the influx of voters not having been greater.
The president and the promoters of the consultation have had harsh public confrontations with the electoral body in charge of their organization that have even reached the Supreme Court.
After seeing its budget request for this initiative denied by Congress, the INE installed on Sunday a third of the polling stations that are usually in a federal election. According to the promoters of the consultation, this explains why many people could not exercise their right to vote to show their support for the president.
“Our opponents, even if they are angry, say that it is half the votes that the president had (in 2018), yes, but with a third [de casillas], and with the traps and with the boycott of the INE”, AMLO came to say this Monday.
image source, Archyde.com
The INE chaired by Lorenzo Córdova has been the target of harsh attacks by AMLO, who accuses him of having wanted to boycott the consultation.
The president of the INE, Lawrence Cordova, He said on Sunday night that “trying to disqualify the organization and participation is nonsense and contempt for the lesson that all citizens have given us today (…). Despite the obstacles that were placed against the INE, was able to guarantee once again the free participation of citizens”.
“If they consider that the consultation was a historical success, with 18-19% participation, then they have to recognize that the INE did its job. Despite the obstacles and the attacks, it complied. Think about it. If the INE had not been exemplary, they could not celebrate what they celebrate…”, tweeted the political analyst Carlos Bravo Alderman.
After knowing the first results, the president also resorted to comparisons, recalling that the votes he obtained are more than those obtained by some of his rivals in the past, such as Felipe Calderón when he won the 2006 presidential election with 15 million or when Ricardo Anaya, PAN candidate in 2018, obtained 12.6 million supports.
In summary, the reading of the results of the consultation is being as disparate as the positions that were maintained before its celebration and after which, it seems, no one has lost.
image source, AFP
“A defeat sung as a victory”, the journalist titled his opinion column in the newspaper El Universal this Monday Hector de Mauleon.
Despite the waste of resources and the excess of cunning, they failed to bring to the polls the number of citizens who approve of their government (…). AMLO’s defeat, however, will be heralded as a victory. A victory no one believes in,” he wrote.
Presidential reelection?
And, although in practice, what happened on Sunday does not change anything -AMLO will continue in his position as expected before the consultation-, surely this electoral result will continue to be present and will have resonance in part of what remains of the Obradorista mandate.
Not only because AMLO will highlight that more than 90% who voted for his continuity as a sign that he continues to have the majority support of the country (“the people put and the people take away” is one of his most repeated phrases), but because the results they will have other consequences in the Mexican political debate.
image source, EPA
From the outset, AMLO announced this Monday that in the electoral reform that the government will present It will be proposed to reduce the percentage of participation necessary so that the mandate revocation queries are binding with “30%, and if possible 20%”.
“We think that 40% participation is very high,” he declared, although in previous days he had assured that he would abide by the majority decision of the voters this Sunday regardless of whether or not the minimum required by law was reached.
“If it is not possible [cambiar la ley], because it would also be at the will of the president (…). Because even if it’s 18 or 10 [de participación], if it is lost, how is it governed? It’s already very difficult, you can’t govern without the support of the citizens,” he added.
Even thinking beyond the end of his term, many of the critics of the referendum had warned that AMLO could use the support achieved this Sunday to perpetuate himself in power.
image source, Getty Images
“There is AMLO for 2024 and more! There is re-election for senators, federal and local deputies, municipal presidents, trustees and aldermen. Could there be re-election for governors and President of the Republic?”, he raised in his networks Felix Salgado Macedonio, Senator from Morena on leave.
A second run for the presidency is not allowed by the Mexican Constitution. So after the controversy caused by his comment, Salgado Macedonio clarified: “It’s just a question. Let the people say.”
But AMLO, who has repeated on several occasions that he will retire from politics in 2024 and even signed a document three years ago in which he promised not to seek re-election, ruled out the idea again after hearing the results of the consultation.
“I’m not going to pass, because I’m a Democrat and I’m not in favor of re-election,” assured this Sunday.
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