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Mexico’s President Andrés Manuel López Obrador on Tuesday put in writing a promise to never seek a second term, after critics expressed worry that a new law allowing a mid-term recall referendum could be a step towards a re-election bid.
“My political adversaries, the conservatives, believe that I am just like them. In face of this malicious lie, I find it necessary to reiterate my principles and democratic convictions,” the President stated.
At a morning news conference, López Obrador signed a document in which he vowed to step down as president when his term ends in 2024 , and retire to his ranch in southern Mexico.
“Never, under any circumstance, will I try to perpetuate myself in the position that I currently have,”
the document stated.
Several Latin American leaders have changed laws to allow them to stand for re-election, including leftists such as Venezuela’s late president Hugo Chávez and President Evo Morales in Bolivia . Colombia’s conservative former president Alvaro Uribe unsuccessfully tried to change the law and run for a second term.
The Mexican constitution limits a president to a single six-year term, and the principle of no re-election has been at the heart of Mexican politics since Francisco I. Madero campaigned in 1909 against president Porfirio Díaz , who had held on to power for three decades.
Late Thursday , Mexico’s lower house of Congress approved legislation permitting referendums to cut short the presidential term, in line with López Obrador’s plan to have the public vote on his performance half-way through his administration.
The constitutional change, which must still be approved by the Senate, will enable López Obrador to honour his pledge to give the electorate a chance to vote him out after three years.
Critics say that will also allow the president to put himself at the centre of the campaign for mid-term legislative elections in 2021, and could encourage support for permitting re-election.
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