Journal of Haiti and the Americas
Recall referendum in Mexico: "Obrador is in a permanent campaign"
Audio 7:30 p.m.
Andrés Manuel López Obrador, in Mexico City, February 9, 2022. © VIA REUTERS - MEXICO'S PRESIDENCY
By: Mikaël Ponge Follow |
Mikael Ponge Follow
3 mins
Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador will remain in power until the end of his term in 2024. More than 90% of voters in the country's first recall referendum wanted the left-wing nationalist leader, elected president in 2018, to go through with it of his single six-year term.
A victory but against a background of abstention, less than 20% of Mexicans voted yesterday (April 10, 2022).
Advertisement
An unprecedented exercise in direct democracy, Andrés Manuel Lopez Obrador made it a campaign promise when he was elected in 2018: for the first time in the history of their country, Mexicans were called on Sunday April 10, 2022 to participate in a first recall referendum of the presidential mandate.
The question was: "Do you agree to revoke the mandate of the President of the United Mexican States for loss of confidence, or for him to remain until the end of his term?"
".
Fifteen million answered “yes”.
This is half as many as those who voted for him in 2018. However,
"he will never admit a rejection",
explains our guest David Recondo, researcher at the Sciences Po International Research Center who believes that Lopez Obrador
“will symbolically exploit the victory by speaking of the 90% of yes, without mentioning abstention”
.
This one however reached a record.
Is this the effect of the call for a boycott launched by the oppositions?
"They have been heard",
believes David Recondo according to whom
"we could have a recomposition of the oppositions, today fragmented, if they managed to exploit this abstention record"
.
But, he specifies:
“the silent majority does not identify with the opposition”
.
For David Recondo, all of this has been
“theatre”
, allowing the incumbent president to
“be in constant campaign and give the impression that he is doing a lot”
.
Haitian justice in the face of insecurity
Haitian clerks will be on strike starting tomorrow, Tuesday, April 12, 2022, for an indefinite period.
A protest movement to try to get the government to move on the issue of insecurity that undermines the whole country and spares no sector, not even that of justice.
At the end of last week, dozens of lawyers already demonstrated in Port-au-Prince in front of the official residence of Prime Minister Ariel Henry to demand a relocation of the Court of First Instance, which is located in the middle of a gang zone.
Without an audience in the capital for months, and faced with this new strike to come, the already extreme prison overcrowding is only getting worse in Haiti.
The country's prisons are only able to receive 3,000 people, but today more than 11,200 are detained there,
The first round of the French presidential election seen from the Americas
Photos of Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen make the front page of many newspapers, from Argentina to Canada.
France's American and European allies "are trying to assess whether Paris will remain a reliable partner in the war against Putin's forces in Ukraine", particularly in view of a victory for Marine Le Pen, notes the American press.
If only the West Indies and Guyana had voted on April 10, Jean-Luc Mélenchon would have been elected President of the Republic this Sunday.
Newsletter
Receive all the international news directly in your mailbox
I subscribe
Follow all the international news by downloading the RFI application
google-play-badge_EN
Mexico
Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador
Haiti
Presidential France 2022
Argentina
Canada
Emmanuel Macron
Marine Le Pen
On the same subject
Mexico: after referendum, President López Obrador continues his mandate until 2024
Journal of Haiti and the Americas
Haiti: great march in Port-au-Prince against insecurity
French presidential election: Mélenchon, an unexpected but insufficient rise