Some 93 million Mexicans vote on Sunday on the continuation of the mandate of their president Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who took the initiative of this
unprecedented "
revocation consultation ", denounced by the opposition as a "
populist
" maneuver.
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Elected for six years in 2018, the 68-year-old nationalist leftist president wanted to give the "
people
" the right to revoke his single mandate before the 2024 deadline, on the model of other Latin American countries like Venezuela. .
But AMLO - his initials and his first name - knows that nearly 60% of Mexicans support his policy of breaking with the neoliberal order of his predecessors, according to opinion polls.
"
Let no one forget that it is the people who command (...) because the people are sovereign
", he declared while voting Sunday morning in Mexico City at the opening of some 57,000 polling stations in the country.
Mexicans must answer the question: "
Do you agree to revoke the mandate of the president for loss of confidence, or for him to continue as President of the Republic until the end of his term?"
The opposition bloc - PAN, on the right, PRD, on the left, and the former party-state of the PRI - took the side of abstention, denouncing a "
populist exercise
".
Opponents suspect AMLO of wanting to rely on a plebiscite to consider re-election, a political taboo in Mexico since the "
Porfiriato
": President Porfirio Diaz, a dictator for some historians, remained in power for nearly 30 years from 1884 to 1911 , before his exile and death in Paris.
The Mexican Constitution only provides for a “
sexenio
” (single term of six years).
Dozens of voters crowded into the polling stations at the opening, AFP noted.
The announced triumph of the "
yes
", however, has a limit: 40% of voters must move for the result to have binding legal value.
A polling institute - Integralia - predicts a stake of around 14.8%.
Less than 8% of Mexicans had moved in August for a previous referendum on possible legal proceedings against several predecessors of the head of state.
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