The homologation of dates with the constitutional elections “will promote greater citizen participation in the aforementioned instruments of direct democracy since, at the same time that they exercise their right to vote, they will be able to issue their decision regarding the direct consultation mechanisms,” states the reform initiative to constitutional Article 35 that proposes modifying the date of the Mandate Revocation consultation.
Mexico City, November 12 (However).– The approval of the dates of the consultation for the Revocation of Mandate of President Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo with the federal electoral process to renew the Chamber of Deputieson Sunday, June 6, 2027, would represent a savings of at least 1,500 million pesos and a notable increase in citizen participation with respect to the popular consultation for the same purpose held on Sunday, April 10, 2022.
This is raised in the reform initiative to Article 35 of the Constitution that proposes to modify the date of the Mandate Revocation consultation to the President from August 2028 to June 2027, as noted in the document that is being studied by the Chamber of Deputies, at the proposal of the Morenoist Deputy Alfonso Ramírez Cuéllar, which also has the support of President Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo.
The first national popular consultation that was carried out in Mexico was on August 1, 2021, when citizens were asked if they agreed that the country’s former presidents should be investigated and punished for abuses, corruption or crimes that they may have incurred during their administrations.
In its conclusions regarding the consultation on the need to investigate and sanction former presidents, the INE indicated that it was certain about the percentage of citizen participation in August 2021, but the results were not binding for the federal Executive and Legislative powers, as well as for the competent authorities, because at least 40 percent of the citizens registered on the Nominal List of Voters did not participate.
In the explanatory statement of the initiative to reform the Constitution and carry out the Revocation of the Mandate in 2027, it is noted that the homologation of dates with the constitutional elections “will promote greater participation of citizens in the aforementioned instruments of direct democracy since, at the same time that they exercise their right to vote, they will be able to issue their decision regarding the direct consultation mechanisms.”
The initiative explains that to illustrate the potential of the reform “it is convenient to remember that for the popular consultation held on August 1, 2021, only the installation of 57,077 receiving tables in the national territory was approved, with a participation of the equivalent of 7.11 percent of the people registered on the Nominal List of Voters.”
On the other hand, the document states that “for the revocation of the 2022 mandate, the INE only installed 57,448 polling stations in the 300 electoral districts into which the national territory is divided; said exercise had a participation of 17.77 percent of the electorate.”
In contrast to the data referring to the two consultations carried out, for the 2024 federal electoral process, the INE approved the installation of 170,858 polling stations and a participation of 61 percent of voters was recorded.
It is expected that if the same number of polling stations had been installed in the 2021 Popular Consultation and in the Revocation of the Presidential Mandate of 2022, the percentage of participation of the people registered on the Nominal List of Voters would have been greater, given the proximity of the polling stations to the voters’ homes.
It is also argued in the reform initiative to carry out the Mandate Revocation consultation simultaneously with the elections of federal deputies of 2027 that “it will facilitate the tasks and activities of the National Electoral Institute, since instead of having two or more calendars, in which the deadlines can overlap, it will only have one calendar for the execution of its functions.”
And in addition, economic reasons are argued:
“The coincidence of direct consultations with the electorate with the ordinary elections will allow a significant reduction in their organizational costs. To dimension this aspect, it is enough to note that the popular consultation held on August 1, 2021 involved an expenditure of 528 million pesos, while the revocation of the presidential mandate carried out on April 10, 2022 represented an expenditure of 1,567 million pesos. Consequently, it is reasonable to predict that, due to economies of scale and processes, the concurrent holding of popular consultations or the revocation of the mandate of the head of the Federal Executive with the ordinary electoral day will contribute to optimizing public resources allocated to said democratic mechanisms.
The consultation on former presidents
When reviewing the constitutionality of the matter of popular consultation on the trial of the former presidents of the Republic, the plenary session of the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation, resolved in its session on October 1, 2020, the request made in this regard by the then President Andrés Manuel López Obrador.
The president proposed that the consultation question be formulated in the following terms: “Do you agree or not that the competent authorities, in accordance with the applicable laws and procedures, investigate, and where appropriate punish, the alleged commission of crimes by former presidents Carlos Salinas de Gortari, Ernesto Zedillo Ponce de León, Vicente Fox Quesada, Felipe Calderón Hinojosa and Enrique Peña Nieto before, during and after their respective elections? procedures?”
However, in its resolution, the Plenary Session of the Supreme Court argued that the President of the Republic’s question was not consistent with the subject matter of the consultation, and modified it to read as follows:
“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 recent years by political actors, aimed at guaranteeing justice and the rights of possible victims?”
The consultation for the Revocation of the Mandate of President Claudia Sheinbaum will be the third national one to be carried out in the political-electoral history of our country, all of them promoted by the governments of the Fourth Transformation.