Lopez Obrador’s referendum on prosecuting Mexico’s ex-presidents is a joke — a dangerous one | Opinion

President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador’s plan to hold an Aug. 1 referendum asking Mexicans whether to prosecute the country’s five living former presidents is not just a stupid waste of money in a nation in desperate need of COVID-19 vaccines — it’s also a dangerous escalation of authoritarian populism in a region where the rule of law is increasingly losing ground.

The referendum, which will cost about $26 million, will be binding if more than 40 percent of registered voters — or about 37 million people — cast their ballots. It will consist of just one question, asking people to vote Yes or No on whether the former heads of state should be put on trial.

Lopez Obrador originally proposed this initiative as a plebiscite that would specifically ask people whether former presidents Carlos Salinas de Gortari (1988-1994,) Ernesto Zedillo (1994-2000,) Vicente Fox (2000-2006,) Felipe Calderon (2006-2012) and Enrique Peña Nieto (2012-2018) should be prosecuted for corruption and human-rights abuses.

The Supreme Court has approved the referendum, but changed the question’s wording, replacing the names of the former presidents with a more-general reference to past public officials. It now asks voters whether they support investigating and prosecuting “political decisions taken in past years by political actors.”

But Lopez Obrador and his Morena party have made it clear that the referendum refers to the former presidents. And given Mexico’s long history of government corruption and human-rights abuses, it’s not surprising that many Mexicans, including some well-known political analysts, support the idea.

But it’s a terrible idea, at the worst possible moment.

Mexico’s COVID-19 death rate is one of the highest in the world; only 23 percent of the population has been vaccinated against the virus, according to an Americas Society/Council of the Americas regional vaccination map.

By comparison, 65 percent of Chileans, 63 percent of Uruguayans and 32 percent of Brazilians have been partially vaccinated, it says. Lopez Obrador’s government has been a world model of inefficiency in fighting the pandemic. It should spend every cent of public funds to buy more, and better, vaccines.

Furthermore, Lopez Obrador’s referendum makes a mockery of the rule of law. Javier Cremades, president of the World Jurist Association, told me in a telephone interview from Madrid, that the referendum “shows a profound disdain for the courts of justice,” which are where suspects should be brought to trial in any democracy.

“This is populism at its worst, and amounts to a political persecution,” Cremades said. “If there are crimes, there should be formal charges, and a due process.”

Jose Miguel Vivanco, head of the Americas department of the Human Rights Watch advocacy group, told me that, “López Obrador is turning Mexico’s justice system into a Roman circus, where punishments are doled out at the will of the emperor and the crowd.”

Vivanco added, “If Mexico’s Attorney General has evidence that former presidents — or anyone else — have committed crimes, he has a duty to investigate and, if warranted, prosecute. That duty is not subject to public opinion.”

Also, if one were to accept the dangerous idea of holding a plebiscite like this one, it should add the name of Lopez Obrador to those of the former presidents suspected of corruption and violations of human rights. By most accounts, government corruption has not diminished under Lopez Obrador; homicide rates have reached new records; health and education standards have plummeted; and the president has yet to respond to his country’s elevated death rates from COVID-19.

Granted, there is nothing wrong with investigating and charging former Mexican presidents for possible corruption or human-rights abuses during their terms, but that’s what prosecutors or legislators are supposed to do.

Presidents have been impeached throughout the Americas, most recently in the United States, but through courts of law or congressional votes, not by a politically charged public referendum.

Lopez Obrador’s referendum has nothing to do with justice. It’s a public distraction, mob rule and a crude display of populist authoritarianism.

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