electoral risk

A characteristic of populist leaders is that they always want to win an election at any cost. They do not accept defeat and their mantra is that only their triumph can be considered legitimate. It is a clearly anti-democratic position. In the campaign, the populist focuses on continually disqualifying his opponents. That disqualifying speech is also based on discrediting the electoral authorities to claim that there was fraud if he does not win.

López Obrador has entered into that script, forced by his lack of political calculation in four areas: he did not contemplate a defeat for Morena in CDMX in 2021; he did not consider the possibility that the opposition in the Chamber of Deputies would overthrow his electricity reform in April 2022 (although the Senate approved it); He was surprised by the great citizen mobilization on November 13 in defense of the INE and now the Chamber of Deputies has rejected the approval of the constitutional changes to tear the INE apart. These mistakes have unnerved the president, since deep down he recognizes the possibility of a defeat at the polls in 2024. In his anger, he has hastened the insults, insults and divisions. He has intensified the electoral fraud narrative.

The fact that the constitutional reform with which he intended to destroy the electoral structure and rules to manage the 2024 election at will was a major blow to ensure, at any cost, the victory of his candidate ( or) of Morena. However, with the approval in the Chamber of Deputies of its “Plan B” of legal changes to the INE, the risk of affecting the budgetary and operational capacity and the administrative efficiency of the INE persists. They are tools with which you can support your candidate for unfair competition. It certainly lacks the approval of the Senate. We’ll see.

Even without these legal approvals, we enter a very mined electoral terrain. López Obrador has never acknowledged defeat at the polls. That was the case in the 2006 election. He invoked fraud and mobilized his supporters to block Reforma Avenue. He never recognized Calderón as president. In an act of ridiculous pantomime, he proclaimed himself the rightful president, appointing a “cabinet” and even designing his own presidential sash. It was an anti-democratic delusion that should have alerted us to what he would be capable of in this presidency that he legitimately won in 2018.

Imagine a scenario where your candidate loses by a very narrow margin to the opposition. López Obrador will claim fraud and will try to accommodate the law to ignore the election. Faced with this adverse result, he will be able to mobilize the streets to his bases. It could even use military support. What would follow would be very uncertain.

With his obsession with transcending with his 4T and that his candidate (or) win in 2024, for practical purposes this six-year term is over. The last third will be dedicated almost exclusively, illegally, to the Morena campaign, acting, from power, as the de facto head of the campaign. It is a complex scenario that will continue to weaken our democracy.

Twitter: @frubli