Hundreds of thousands of protesters in cities across Mexico turned out on Nov. 13 to oppose President Andrés Manuel
López Obrador’s
plans to eliminate the independence of the country’s electoral authority.
In simpler terms, the world witnessed a national rally to save what’s left of Mexico’s democracy after four years of AMLO—as the president is known—at the helm.
Mr. López Obrador is subject to a strict one-term limit. He can’t legally remain in the presidency beyond the end of his six-year tenure in 2024. Yet he can retain power behind the throne if his Morena Party candidate is declared the winner of the next election.
As an insurance policy toward that end, he has proposed a constitutional amendment in Congress aimed at changing the way members of the National Electoral Institute, or INE, are chosen. If passed, Mr. López Obrador and Morena would be able to gain control of the institute, which is the arbiter of fairness during campaigns and counts the vote in elections.
AMLO also wants to give control of the voter rolls (now in the hands of INE) to the government, use proportional representation to elect the entire lower house of Congress, and eliminate electoral authorities at the state level.
Civil society is having none of it. It went to the streets not for partisan politics but in the defense of competitive elections. In Mexico City alone, a conservative estimate put the size of the demonstration that jammed Paseo de la Reforma at upward of 250,000.
The president dismissed the crowds as a bunch of well-to-do racists. But he’s clearly worried about what appears to be broadening resentment against his antidemocratic governance. He can hold his own rallies but he knows they’re rent-a-mob events.
He won the presidency in 2018 because the anti-AMLO vote was split among multiple candidates, turnout in northern states was lackluster, and he dominated Mexico City. In this latest outpouring of resistance, an energized opposition has emerged alongside signs that he has lost the support of the intellectual left.
He accused the demonstrators of standing in the way of his agenda, which he calls the “fourth transformation” of the country. That much is true. His consolidation of power in the name of progress is unpopular.
When Mr. López Obrador was elected with nearly 53% of…
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