MEXICO CITY, April 11. – Court analysts called the results of the first recall referendum in the history of this country as “excellent”, which Andrés Manuel López Obrador confirmed with 91.8 percent positive votes and 99.97 percent as president of the counts.
Although the opposition and even headlines in the foreign press highlighted the fact that between 17 and 18.2 percent of voters on the electoral rolls went to the polls, the percentage of AMLO’s favor represented roughly between 16 and 18 million people, according to experts; a not insignificant figure, even exceeding the votes he received in the 2006 elections when he was vying against Felipe Calderón in a contest for the presidency, the results of which he denounced as stealing his victory. So he got 14,800,000 votes.
For some, the positive result this Sunday was not surprising, given that the head of state has around 60 percent support.
The low turnout shouldn’t come as a surprise either, given that, press outlets recalled, the opposition had criticized the recall as an “unnecessary expense” and the National Electoral Institute (INE) itself was doing its thing, installing just a third of the polling stations during the 2018 presidential election used
At the request of the president himself, who had promised before his election that he would be given the opportunity to revoke his mandate if he won, the electoral authorities did not convene a tournament taking place in the country for the first time.
During his morning press conference on Monday, López Obrador viewed Sunday’s results as a triumph for participatory democracy.
The opponents are angry and say: “We won with half the votes of the 2018 election when I got more than 30 million, but this time it was more than 15 million with only a third of the ballot boxes plus all the tricks of the INE », said Obrador according to PL.
He explained that people went out to vote what they could: canoes, boats, horses, bikes, trucks … And they participated, for which “I thank them very much and I will pay for this gesture by never betraying and keep working for them.”
AMLO reiterated that he will remain president until September 2024, “because the people have already wanted it that way and we will deepen the country’s transformation”, relieved by “this good experience in the application of participatory democracy”. “
He also announced that the electoral reform that he will present is firm and that some aspects will be taken into account so that consultations like this one on the revocation are binding, without the need to reach 40 percent of citizen participation, since they are very high to count. , estimated.
It is great progress, AMLO reflected on Sunday’s referendum, predicting that there would be a long road to strengthening democracy and that the people would always hold the reins of power in their hands.