Mexicans have started voting Referendum President Andres Manuel López Obrador pushed for an investigation of the former president’s alleged corruption, but experts criticized the vote as a political gimmick.

Lopez Obrador, the well-known Anti-Money Laundering Organization (AMLO), once regarded the past government as extremely corrupt and made combating this practice a priority.

But critics say that the Mexican president hopes to use this consultation to breathe life into his foundation and is unlikely to get enough votes to make it effective. To be binding, 37.4 million people (40% of the electoral roll) must participate.

Voting starts at 8 am local time (13:00 GMT) on Sunday and will end at 6 pm (23:00 GMT). It is expected that the results will be announced within two or three days.

Roy Campos, director of the polling company Mitofsky, said that although a “yes” vote may win up to 90% of the turnout, even a 30% turnout is difficult to achieve.

“Consultation has become ideological,” Campos told Reuters. “The president’s supporters are those who want to vote and vote yes.”

Jose Antonio Crespo, a political analyst at the Mexican Center for Economic Research and Training, agreed. He called the referendum “strictly speaking, an exercise of political and media exposure” and pointed out the problem of voting. The result is beyond doubt.

“The question is not whether the’yes’ option will win, we know that 90% or more people will vote yes,” Crespo said.

“The question is, how many people will vote? Many of us don’t want to be manipulated. This will show how many people still support Lopez Obrador and how much he has the ability to mobilize people.”

According to a recent survey by the El Financiero newspaper, 77% of respondents said they would support the proposal of the former leader of the survey, but only 31% said they would vote.

Rosario Gomez is one of the people planning to vote in one of the 57,000 ballot boxes set up by the electoral agency, and to vote in more than 160,000 ballot boxes set up by the electoral agency. Legislative and local elections in June.

“These thieves should pay!” said the 52-year-old market vendor.

Lopez Obrador accused former leaders Carlos Salinas, Ernesto Zedillo, Vicente Fox, Felipe Calderon and Enrique Pena Nieto (who was in power from 1988 to 2018) exacerbated many of Mexico’s plights, from poverty to insecurity.

“People want participatory democracy, not just representative democracy,” he said last week. “You must have faith in the people, you must have faith in the people and their free choice, not afraid of the people.”

An ad showing the image of former Mexican President Carlos Salinas calls on citizens to participate in the referendum [Christian Palma/AP Photo]

The president initially wanted a referendum to ask voters whether they wanted the former president to be prosecuted, but the Supreme Court ordered a looser wording to protect due process and the presumption of innocence.

The question is: “Do you agree to take relevant actions in accordance with the Constitution and the legal framework to clarify the political decisions made by political actors in the past few years to ensure justice and the rights of potential victims?”

The government of Lopez Obrador has not specified what the process will involve.

Campos said that the statute of limitations for some of the allegations that the former president may face has expired, and the referendum may result in the establishment of a truth commission instead of legal action.

But the former president can be tried like any other citizen, and critics believe that the referendum is unnecessary. “Waiting for the outcome of the negotiations makes justice a political circus,” said Jose Miguel Vivanco, head of Human Rights Watch Americas.

Other opponents said in the slogan: “The law must apply, not vote.”

Fox, who served as president from 2000 to 2006, was an outspoken critic of Lopez Obrador, and he urged Mexicans to stay at home. “Let us not indulge in this farce,” he wrote on Twitter.

In Transparency International’s World Corruption Perception Index, Mexico ranks 124th out of 179 countries.