Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador is exceptionally due to lead a demonstration on Sunday in Mexico City in support of his own policy, a show of force with the next election scheduled for 2024 in sight.
“I invite all the people” to participate in this “historic” moment, declared the 69-year-old head of state on the eve of this gathering which promises to be massive given its popularity (nearly 60% of favorable views).
This power march comes two weeks after a march of tens of thousands of people in Mexico City against an electoral reform project defended by the left-nationalist president.
AMLO, its initials and acronym, claimed its own rally is not a response to opposition, but a way to “celebrate progress in transforming Mexico.”
At the end of the march, Lopez Obrador, elected on July 1, 2018 and in office since December 1 of the same year, will present the results of his four years in power in the Zocalo, the largest square in Mexico.
AMLO wants to “show the muscles,” said Fernando Dworak, an analyst at the Autonomous Technological Institute of Mexico (ITAM), contacted by AFP.
“The opposition made a big mistake believing they could defeat the president on the streets,” he added.
An allusion to the president’s ability to mobilize when he was in opposition.
Oil the machine
Sunday’s mobilization comes in a pre-campaign context less than two years from the next presidential election in 2024 (the head of state in Mexico is elected for a single six-year term).
Two possible AMLO dolphins must walk with him, the mayor of Mexico City Claudia Sheinbaum and the Minister of Foreign Affairs Marcelo Ebrard.
Lopez Obrador “wants to continue to mobilize” to keep Morena, his party, in power, according to Dworak.
“He knows that to win an election you need a well-oiled machine that works all the time,” added researcher Gustavo López.
Besides AMLO’s popularity, Morena is in a position of strength against an opposition bloc which includes the PRI, the former party in power for 70 years, the PAN (right) and the PRD (left).
This alliance split recently, before reuniting against the government’s electoral reform plan.
The reform claims to change the operating rules of the National Electoral Institute (INE) so that its members are elected, and no longer chosen by the parties.
The reform also plans to reduce the size of the INE as well as the number of members of Parliament (the deputies would go from 500 to 300, and the senators from 128 to 96).
The president accuses INE of covering up alleged fraud in the 2006 and 2012 elections he lost.
His opponents say he wants to end the “independence” of the INE, which has overseen the organization of elections since its creation in 1990.
The President needs a two-thirds majority in Parliament for the approval of this reform, because it is a constitutional reform.
The opposition also accuses Lopez Obrador of authoritarianism and of wanting to “militarize” the country.
The president has in fact entrusted the army with several major projects as well as public security tasks.