Pablo Gómez points out sanctions against Mexicans who did not vote in revocation of mandate

Pablo Gómez, head of the Federal Government's Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) said that citizen participation in the Mandate Revocation was mandatory and in accordance with Mexico's Constitution, sanctions such as the suspension of rights are proposed electoral elections for up to one year for those who do not comply with the duty to go to the polls

The former redeemer ruled that the National Electoral Institute (INE) did not inform Mexicans that voting in the Mandate Revocation was mandatory. This is after only 16.5 million Mexicans with voter's credentials went to the polling stations while nearly 76 million people chose not to attend.

Gómez cited article 35 of the Constitution, which states that all citizens have the obligation to vote in elections, popular consultations and revocation processes, and pointed out that article 38 “the sanction for not doing so”.

However, the federal official had a little confusion about the article of the Constitution which establishes compulsory nature and shortly thereafter made the point that article 35 refers to the right to vote, while article 38 mentions penalties for not voting.

The Constitution states that voting in popular elections is a right and although article 38 refers to possible suspensions, the General Law on Electoral Institutions and Procedures indicates that it is necessary for a judge to determine the suspension of the electoral rights of a citizen and subsequently the INE must be given notice in order to withdraw his name from the electoral roll for the duration of that measure.

The former federal deputy for Morena accused the INE of hiding from citizens the mandatory nature of last Sunday's day, in which it ended up being defined that President of the Republic Andrés Manuel López Obrador will remain in office for the rest of his constitutional term.

According to INE data, 16,503,636 people participated on April 10, out of the 92,823,216 that make up the Nominal List.

Thus, 76 million 319 thousand 580 Mexicans failed to comply with the obligation to vote in the Revocation of Mandate and in theory could receive the sanction set out in article 38 of the Constitution:

The rights or prerogatives of citizens are suspended: For failure to fulfil, without just cause, any of the obligations imposed by article 36. This suspension will last one year and shall be imposed in addition to the other penalties that the law indicates for the same act.

In addition, the former leader of the 68 student movement has accused for months that the INE did not suffer a cut in its budget and pointed him out for installing only 57,448 boxes for this exercise of Revocation.

Faced with the accusation of an alleged boycott by the INE in this Mandate Revocation, as indicated by 18 Q4 governors, President Lorenzo Córdova replied that “if there was a boycott it was the one who did not give the money so that all the boxes could be installed”.

In the federal election of 2021, there was a participation of 48,874,040 citizens, representing 52.66% of the electoral roll, however, no party or political actor pointed out the possible sanctions against the nearly 45 million Mexicans who did not comply with this voting obligation.

In the 2018 elections in which the office of President of the Republic was elected, among others, the level of participation was 63.42% while almost 30 million abstained from going to the polls to cast their votes.

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