On April 10th, Mexico held its first presidential recall vote to see whether Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) would remain in office or not. The turnout threshold of 40% was not reached, as only 17.8% of the voter’s roll turned out, which means that the results were not legally binding- in any case, 92% of voters who turned out voted for AMLO to remain president. As with many things about AMLO and Mexican politics today, this was a truly bizarre election: AMLO was the one who supported the recall vote and wanted people to turn out while the opposition campaigned for voters to just not show up at the polls. Why? Mexico is so polarized that this vote has two completely different interpretations: pro-AMLO citizens say it is a democratic innovation and hail it as a triumph of democracy, for those critical of AMLO, they see this vote and the circumstances around it as evidence of democratic backsliding in the country.
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