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In this edition of Enlace Norteamerica, from Mexico City we talk about the recall referendum of Andrés Manuel López Obrador. Mexicans are summoned to the polls on April 10 to decide on his permanence in the Presidency. We will explain the importance of this query and the controversy that surrounds it. We will also witness the resurgence of Mexico City as the cultural capital of Ibero-America, as it was recognized in 2021.
From the beginning of his Government, López Obrador promised that he would submit to a recall referendum, sent his initiative to Congress and it was approved in November 2019. The citizens of at least 17 states had to gather 2,700,000 signatures to request the consultation. An organization related to the president managed to collect more than 3 million.
The National Electoral Institute (INE) is the authority responsible for organizing the consultation with the same characteristics as a presidential election. For this reason, it will have voting booths throughout the country and it is already training the citizens who will receive the ballots and count the votes.
The electoral advisor Roberto Ruiz heads the INE and explains the significance of the exercise: “I think the relevance is that we are inaugurating in our country these mechanisms of direct democracy, of participatory democracy at the national level, these schemes already existed at the local level but not national level, and it is a challenge for the electoral authority”.
The referendum has been mired in controversy. Those who promote it the most are López Obrador himself and his followers, arguing that it is time for participatory democracy. In contrast, there are those who warn that the president and his supporters distort the consultation, promoting it as “ratification” and not “revocation”, as established by law, and assure that it is a useless expense, since the Constitution sets the term of office until 2024.
“This process is going to be remembered as a “revocation of fraud”, because the spirit of the figure of the citizen right to request the constitutional cessation of the mandate of the President of the Republic is being distorted.” Says Gustavo de Hoyos, opponent of the referendum and leader of ‘Yes for Mexico’. “If today the Mexican opposition is not asking for the president’s dismissal, incurring in an expense of this nature seems completely useless, because then it has no other purpose than to have some approval rating for the president,” he adds.
After a long struggle between López Obrador and his supporters against the electoral authorities, due to restrictions on dissemination and the budget assigned to carry out the referendum, it will finally take place. And even if 40% of the voters do not participate, the president maintains that if the majority decides that he should leave, he will leave.
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