Let us think of Mexico not as a surrealist country or as the nation of political absurdity, and let us imagine that we are not immersed in a bizarre process of “mandate ratification” promoted by the president himself, his party and his sympathizers.
Let us suppose for a moment that we are in a true revocation process; Let’s think that 2.8 million citizens, convinced that they have lost confidence in the president, decided to mobilize, gather signatures and ask the INE to organize a consultation to promote the early conclusion of the six-year term.
Let’s see the revocation of the mandate for what it is -a citizen’s right- and not as the exercise that MORENA and the 4T have turned it into -a prerogative of the president to measure his popularity and endorse his mandate
What would happen if we really were facing the possibility that the president would be thrown out of power by an authentic and genuine citizen mobilization?
Could the president use the media to defend his stay in office? The answer is no.
Could the president comment on the process and call his own to vote once morest its revocation? Not once more.
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Could the political parties that brought him to power use their resources to convince citizens to vote so that the president does not leave? No, and neither might the opposition parties campaign for him to leave.
It is absurd, but that is how the legislators put it in the Constitution and in the law.
For this reason, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador cannot talk regarding his own revocation process.
And, although the exercise was born denatured -because no one is authentically demanding the revocation of López Obrador-, in the coming days the rules of the baroque communication model that governs the political contest in Mexico will be in force.
What does the Constitution say regarding it?
First, that during the time that includes the process of revocation of mandate, from the call and until the conclusion of the day, the dissemination in the media of all government propaganda of any order of government must be suspended.
“The public powers, the autonomous bodies, the dependencies and entities of the public administration and any other entity of the three orders of government, may only disseminate information campaigns related to educational and health services or those necessary for civil protection. , it is noted in the constitutional article 35.
The same paragraphs were copied in full in article 33 of the Federal Law of Revocation of Mandate. In other words, the legislators who approved the reform to article 35 in 2019, and those who approved the secondary law in September 2021, left no room for doubt: the so-called ban is an irrefutable fact.
In addition, the Constitution states that the National Electoral Institute will be the only body in charge of disseminating the process and promoting citizen participation.
The law details that the INE will promote the dissemination and informed discussion of the mandate revocation process through the radio and television times that correspond to the Institute itself, serving as the sole authority for the administration of the time that corresponds to the State on radio and television. for said promotion.
And it adds: “no other natural or legal person, either on their own behalf or on behalf of third parties, may hire radio and television aimed at influencing the opinion of citizens on the revocation of the mandate. The Institute will order the cancellation of any and will initiate the corresponding sanction process.”
This means that, between last February 4th and next April 10th -voting day-, only the INE may promote the revocation of the mandateor, what has already become a new reason for tension between the lopezobradorismo and the electoral advisers.
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López Obrador has said that he will respect the restrictions, but has instructed the Legal Department of the Presidency to consult the Electoral Tribunal regarding the scope of the word “propaganda”, since he considers that the content of the morning conference is informative and not propagandistic. .
The Presidency has stopped including in the Monday conference the videos of the progress of the works that have been projected for years before the “who’s who in gasoline prices.”
But the president is concerned that the inauguration of the Felipe Ángeles Airport, scheduled for March 21, cannot be publicized, and he has ordered to ask what he will be able to do and say that day.
The president claims to respect the “veda”, and has even joked more than once regarding what he can and cannot say; however, he remains faithful to his style and, at the slightest provocation, comes out with the chant that “the people put and the people take away.”
The National Electoral Institute has already reprimanded him through the Complaints Commission, which on February 8 resolved a PRD complaint and decided to issue preventive protection for López Obrador “refrain from making demonstrations, issuing comments, opinions or remarks on the revocation of the mandate”.
In addition, the president was ordered to “review, adjust, adapt, modify or update his strategies, programs or public policies, with the intention that his actions are within the constitutional principles of impartiality and neutrality, without interfering in the process ” .
Obviously, this resolution was not to the liking of the Executive, and it is certain that the matter will have to be resolved substantively in the Specialized Chamber of the Electoral Court, which may or may not endorse the INE’s decision.
The battle, however, will be permanent: López Obrador will continue to speak regarding his revocation (as he did last weekend on a tour of Sonora), the opposition parties will continue to present complaints, the councilors will have to attend to them and resolve them according to their previous criteria, and the tension it will grow between the National Palace and the INE.
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Along the way, an interested third party has appeared on the scene; neither more nor less than the Chamber of the Radio and Television Industry (CIRT), which last week already challenged the call of the INE before the Electoral Court.
The concessionaires allege that the revocation of the mandate is not an electoral process in which government propaganda generates inequity, and that the application of the prohibitions established in the Constitution violates the right of Mexicans to be informed.
The INE assures that it will strictly apply both constitutional article 35 and the federal law of revocation of mandate, which allows anticipating new clashes with the president.
They will not be the first nor the last disagreements.
After the revocation of the mandate, the so-called electoral ban will continue in the six states where there will be elections on Sunday June 5 and, following that, the announced electoral reform will begin to be discussed, which might well address, among other issues, the communication model in force since the 2007-2008 reform.
It is paradoxical: that reform that established a hyper-restrictive model of political communication, for the sake of a fairer contest and without undue interference, was a demand from the left that, in 2006, had been defeated in a campaign in which the government of Vicente Fox, businessmen, the media and many other interests lined up to block López Obrador’s path, seriously affecting the conditions of equity.
Today, the model is questioned by those who promoted it from the opposition but suffer from it as a government and, in an oversight, might end up giving in to the television and radio industry that for 14 years has complained that the INE is the sole administrator of the access of political actors to radio and TV.
The behavior of the president and the industry, as well as the resolutions of the INE and the Court, during the coming months of revocation of the mandate, will set an interesting precedent for the debate on this probable reform.
*Twitter: @chamanesco
