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Taking it to the Mexican people

Sarah Birke: incoming Mexico and Central America bureau chief, The Economist

Andrés Manuel López Obrador proposes a referendum on his presidency so far

Mexico’s mingler

AMLO may not pay at the polls for his blunders

MEXICO’S POPULIST president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, has proposed a
constitutionally dubious referendum to validate his presidency halfway through its six-
year term. He says it could take place alongside mid-term elections in June, when
Mexicans will be voting for the 500 seats of the lower house of the national congress
and, in almost half the 32 states, for their congresses and governors.

Whether the recall referendum goes ahead or not, the elections could spell trouble for
Morena, the party AMLO founded. Mask-free and hug-happy, months into the pandemic,
AMLO and his government have badly mishandled it. Mexico entered 2021 trailing only
the United States, Brazil and India for the number of deaths from covid-19. (The
government admits the official figure may be a gross underestimate.) As children
elsewhere returned to school in September, Mexicans started television education.