MEXICO CITY ( Associated Press) – Opposition regions called on Sunday for mobilization in the Mexican capital and other cities in the country to promote a boycott of the referendum to withdraw President Andres Manuel López Obrador’s mandate to be held on April 10, In which it has been seen involved in the controversy and disappointment of the voters.
“Democracy, Democracy!” K to cry, and “Finish and leave!” Several hundred protestors, dressed in white shirts and pants, left after noon to march through one of the main thoroughfares of the center of Mexico, amid banners reading To promote a boycott of the consultations promoted by López Obrador of the Revolution. The city for the symbol monument, who seeks to re-legalize his administration halfway through his six-year term and go down in history as the first Mexican ruler to promote such a vote. ,
“They want to tease us with false repeal. There is no repeal. What the president wants is his ratification,” said 52-year-old public employee Sandra Herrera, holding a sign saying, “You finish and you leave. We are all Mexican. Mexico united among the hundreds of people gathered at the Memorial of the Revolution”.
Herrera said he expected most Mexicans not to go to the polls on Sunday not to support the “spectacle” and that by April 11 “we open our eyes and don’t allow the president to divide us.”
Very close to Herrera was the 45-year-old businessman Jaime Apud, who indicated that he had asked López Obrador “to go out and march to work for the security of the country, to work on the drugs that have been reinstated.” Have done. in hospitals. , and in the economy.
“In that (national) palace, the president doesn’t realize that real life is out here on the streets, and that security and our economy are deteriorating day by day. It’s time to stop talking so much and start working.”
In the referendum, Mexico will be asked whether they want López Obrador’s mandate revoked, or continue until the end of his six-year term in 2024.
Given the ruler’s popularity, which is over 60%, and the weakening of the opposition, analysts have already assumed that the option to revoke the mandate would not be successful, but it is expected that there could be a lower turnout. Is. Ignorance about counseling and voter apathy.
Some analysts say the event could face a similar fate to the referendum held last August, which was also promoted by López Obrador, in which Mexico was asked if they could support former President Carlos Salinas de Gortari. Ernesto Zedillo is in favor of prosecuting Vicente. Fox, Felipe Calderón and Enrique Pea Nieto. The consultation had a 7% participation and did not achieve the minimum 40% (equivalent to 37.5 million voters) required by Mexican law to be binding on public powers.
Patricio Morelos, an academic at Tecnológico de Monterrey, said the results of the recall referendum would be able to generate little political impact in the face of gubernatorial elections to be held on June 5 in six of the country’s 32 states, or the presidential ones of 2024.
Morelos told the Associated Press that it was very likely that President López Obrador would win the referendum, but with a low turnout, a situation the opposition could take advantage of to claim that the referendum was a failure and that the huge amount of resources that could have been lost. could have been wasted unnecessarily. Has been used to attend to other urgent problems in Mexico.
“No one is going to win. Everyone is going to perpetuate a polarizing discourse in which probably the one who wins is López Obrador, who has a greater number of supporters than the opposition,” he said.
Regarding the motivations that have led areas hostile to the government to promote the boycott, Morelos indicated that the opposition knows that “the numbers are not in their favor at the moment” to achieve the repeal of López Obrador’s mandate. “, and that is why it chooses to encourage non-participation because “it is more profitable” to say that the vote failed to be binding.
Among those who raised their voice against the referendum is former President Fox, who ruled Mexico from 2000 to 2006, who urged Mexico not to go to the polls on April 10.
“Let’s leave him blank so that it hits hard on his arrogance and his pride. Because, there’s no other way than that; the rest he’ll manage to take advantage of.” Fox, a staunch critic of Lopez Obrador, wrote a message on Twitter on Friday I said, zero, not going to vote, it is the general consensus that those of us who think this guy should be defeated.
In the months before the referendum, there was an intense political and legal battle between the ruling party and the National Electoral Institute (INE) after the Congress, controlled by the ruling party Movimiento de Regeneración Nacional (Morena), cut the budget of the organism. ,
The INE suspended the referendum process in December on the grounds that it lacked sufficient resources, but had to reactivate it later after a Supreme Court ruling, which ordered it to continue voting.
After a series of adjustments, the electoral body set a budget of approximately $78.2 million for the recall referendum, which was initially estimated to cost $191.2 million. López Obrador regularly criticizes INE.
