The Mexicans were allowed to vote on Sunday in a referendum on whether investigations should be started against five former presidents and, if necessary, trials opened.

According to the first results of the electoral authority, more than ninety percent voted in favor.

However, at around eight percent, participation in the vote was so low that its outcome is not binding.

At least forty percent participation would have been necessary for a binding result.

Tjerk Brühwiller

Correspondent for Latin America based in São Paulo.

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It was the first constitutional referendum at the federal level in Mexico since this was regulated by law in 2014.

At the same time, it was very controversial.

The subject is subject to the competence of the judiciary, criticized constitutional lawyers, and should not be subjected to a referendum.

But the current President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who initiated the vote, prevailed.

High judges admonished López Obrador

Originally, López Obrador wanted to ask the population whether his five predecessors should be investigated for alleged crimes that were committed during their tenure. The five previous presidents Carlos Salinas de Gortari, Ernesto Zedillo, Vicente Fox, Felipe Calderón and Enrique Peña Nieto should be mentioned by name on the question. However, the Supreme Court ordered the referendum issue to be adjusted in order to preserve the presumption of innocence.

Observers saw the referendum as an attempt by López Obrador to mobilize the population. Critics accused the president, however, of abusing the referendum to create a mood against the opposition. The low turnout is seen as a rebuff to López Obrador. He anticipated the low turnout even before the election by announcing that he would take part in the vote himself. He also criticized the fact that not enough polling stations had been set up.

The chairman of López Obrador's left-wing national Morena party nevertheless celebrated the vote as a “big day for our democracy”, emphasized the clear result and called for the creation of a truth commission and a “commission against impunity for economic crimes of neoliberalism”. He did not mention the low turnout.