Mandate revocation: why it is virtually impossible for AMLO to lose

The Mandate Revocation exercise in which citizens will be consulted on whether President Andrés Manuel López Obrador should continue in his term for another three years or not will be defined today, Sunday, April 10, but what chance is there for him to lose?

It is important to note that for the consultation to be valid before the Mexican authorities, it is necessary, among other requirements, to register a participation of at least 40% of the current electoral roll. That is, of the nearly 93 million citizens registered in the INE, it will be necessary for about 37 million to vote (beyond their election). Of that amount, for López Obrador to be revoked from office in the Executive Branch, an absolute majority will be required whoever requests it, that is, at least 19 million votes.

Analysts and even politicians of the Morena party, see an infinitely smaller participation than required.

Ricardo Monreal Álvarez, president of the Political Coordination Board (Jucopo) of the Senate of the Republic, pointed out what figures would be “a success” for the participatory democracy exercise to which President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) will undergo.

According to the also leader of the Senators of the National Regeneration Movement (Morena), 10 million voters would be a moderate success for an exercise that will be held for the first time in the country; while 15 million, an optimal success; however, he said that 20 million, from his perspective, could be described as “success great”.

In Latin America, the figure of the Revocation or Revocation of Mandate exists in the Constitutions of countries such as Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador, where it was tested by presidents such as Hugo Chávez, in 2004, and Evo Morales in 2008, with favorable results for both and their political projects.

The political analyst and researcher at the Colegio de México comments on this unprecedented exercise in Mexico:

“For the exercise to have a binding meaning, that is to say legal and for the result to be compulsory for the relevant political bodies, a very high participation of the population is needed, beyond 30 million, which is practically impossible to happen. The optimists are calculating a turnout of 10 or 12 million, but it will hardly be possible to achieve the possibility that the result will be binding.

What would be the use?

“What is going to happen there is that it will not have an effect beyond the publicity given to it, that is the first question, the second is that as the majority of those who participate have foreseen, 90% of the voters, will ratify the participation of the president, in these two scenarios what will bring about is the happiness of the president, number of participants is not relevant to him, so he disappeared Texcoco airport with 10 hands raised.

“What interests him is that 90% of people ratify it so that it continues and second, which is the danger of the matter, is that he is going to accuse the INE, as it has been doing, that there is no greater participation because of it. It will hold the organizing institution responsible for a result that in practice is the rejection of this exercise, the scenario is very bad, this means that in the following days the president will have all the justification for the policy that is already being obvious against the INE, the attempts to modify the legislation and modify its constitution and in the end create an institution that is the way, as it is doing with other institutions, this is obviously the risk”, considered the professor and researcher at the Center for International Studies of the Colegio de México.

“It should not be to applaud yourself”: Rogelio Hernandez Rodriguez

“Rescuing an event of this nature, the revocation of mandate is a procedure with the purpose that citizens at some point consider that the president is no longer competent for the office can remove it, it is one of the most important instruments of democracies, but it is not that it is available to the leaders to to applaud themselves in this case is that it is being the second thing, it is not promoted by the citizens but by the president. Publicity, which is certainly being made illegal at the expense of the Constitution, is inviting the president's ratification, and as some politicians say it is a futile and expensive exercise,” said the Doctor of Political Science, from the Faculty of Political and Social Sciences of the National Autonomous University of Mexico.

What is the use of not voting?

“If citizens believe that López Obrador should effectively end his term early, they should participate, but what they should be fully aware of is that it is not a citizen initiative and that it is not really having the echo that it should have, what we must not lose sight of is that the purpose would be for President will end his term, the point is that nobody wants him to leave, what is promoting this is his followers for the opposite purpose,” concluded Hernández Rodríguez.

“The INE gave credibility to the elections, so AMLO is now president”

What role does the INE play and why the disagreements with the president?

“The INE, the former IFE, has been one of the fundamental institutions, I would dare to say that decisive in the political changes in this country, without it there would not have been enough confidence for both political parties and citizens to make political alternation a reality.

“Just to remember, before the IFE, there was a body that was the Federal Electoral Commission that was under the ministry of the interior, that meant that there was direct influence from the executive in the operation and accounting of votes, and so on, and so was the Mexican political system in the central years of the last century.

“The IFE, the current INE, became the arbitral body that gave credibility to the elections, thanks to that credibility, today López Obrador is now president, which means that any aggression that questions the honorability, the impartiality of the institute is undermining the democratic struggle of our country. To destroy the INE is to return the operation of the elections to the executive, so that it organizes them in a way, in the same way that it is doing with other organizations, we have already seen it with the Banco de México, with the CNDH and with him (AMLO) what he is worried about is not the revocation of mandate but that he does not have an agency that covers his back in the coming elections, and especially in federal elections, he wants a body that does what he wants and that therefore assures him, regardless of the citizen's will, that his party will continue with his project that he is developing.

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