EFE.- The unprecedented and controversial popular consultation of August 1 on prosecuting former presidents of the country for corruption and other crimes, whose promoters have the enormous challenge of achieving a 40% participation to make it binding.
“Most of the people are receptive and willing to participate in this consultation with all the spirit. Some say put them in jail, return everything stolen, pay, ”Narciso Monsiváis, a citizen promoting the referendum in northern Mexico City, told EFE.
The popular consultation next Sunday, the first in the history of Mexico at the national level, was called by the current president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who came to power in 2018 with the promise of eradicating corruption.
However, the president says that he will not vote not to encourage “revenge”, so the campaign is in the hands of citizen associations linked to his leftist party National Regeneration Movement (Morena).
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“The central issue is that they render accounts before the Mexican Justice for crimes against humanity, historical indebtedness and the number of displaced persons due to the alleged drug trafficking war,” Monsivais explained while his colleagues distributed brochures at the entrance to the subway.
The truth is that the question does not make it very clear what will happen if the “Yes” is imposed, and it is unknown whether the Government will denounce the ex-presidents or create truth commissions to compensate the victims.
WITHOUT THE EX-PRESIDENTS IN THE QUESTION
Initially, the consultation was going to ask if the Government should investigate and prosecute former presidents Carlos Salinas de Gortari (1988-1994), Ernesto Zedillo (1994-2000), Vicente Fox (2000-2006), Felipe Calderón (2006- 2012) and Enrique Peña Nieto (2012-2018).
But the Supreme Court modified the question, which will finally ask Mexicans if “Do you agree or not that the pertinent actions be carried out in accordance with the constitutional and legal framework, to undertake a process of clarification of the political decisions taken in the past years by political actors, aimed at guaranteeing justice and the rights of possible victims? ”.
Oblivious to the question change, the promoters of the consultation have been campaigning since July 15, covering the streets with the faces of the former presidents of what López Obrador calls “the neoliberal period.”
Clad in a Salinas de Gortari mask, Juan Carlos Nájera asks passersby to vote “Yes” in front of the central church of San Hipólito, and there is no shortage of people who dedicate some obscene gesture to identify his characteristic bald head and mustache.
“At the national level, many colleagues are doing the informative work. Together we can move forward so that they are linked in any way and that they return what was stolen, “he explained with a colleague disguised as Vicente Fox who danced to the emblematic” Two-legged Rat “by Paquita la del Barrio.
VISIONS FOUND
However, many voices have raised their voices against the fact that in the rule of law citizens are consulted if crimes must be prosecuted.
This is the case of the director for the Americas of Human Rights Watch (HRW), José Miguel Vivanco, who described the referendum as a “political circus”.
In this sense, the CitizenGO organization collected 15,000 signatures under the slogan “President, stop the charade and apply the law.”
“Here in Mexico we need this type of activity a lot, unfortunately I have doubts about how far it can go because we are very corrupt,” said Quetzal, a passerby from the capital.
Be that as it may, on the street everyone is clear that the consultation is about former presidents: “I think that Peña Nieto should be held accountable for what happened to the students (from Ayotzinapa who disappeared in 2014),” said Antonieta, a food vendor.
THE CHALLENGE OF PARTICIPATION
The main stumbling block of this first popular consultation is that of participation, since 40% of the 93 million Mexicans called to the polls are required to vote for the result to be binding.
A major challenge because the midterm elections last June had a participation of 53% and it was a historical fact.
Both the promoters of the consultation and the environment of President López Obrador criticize that the National Electoral Institute (INE) does not make enough effort to make the referendum a success.
In a telephone interview with Efe, the electoral councilor Martín Faz recalled that the INE asked Congress for a larger budget, but did not give them “not a single peso” more.
“We would have liked to install more polling stations,” Faz explained, since there will be 57,000 polling stations throughout the country, much less than the 163,000 of the last elections.
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However, he trusted that it is “a sufficient number for there to be broad participation” and welcomed the country’s progress towards “direct democracy.”
Eduard Ribas i Admetlla / EFE