A leftwing nationalist Andrés Manuel López Obrador has been elected Mexico’s president. The campaign was driven almost entirely by domestic concerns. “I look very much forward to working with him,” US President Donald Trump said in a tweet.
Amlo, as Mr López Obrador is known, received more than 53 per cent of the vote in the presidential elections on July 1, according to an official “fast count” as his popularity cut across ages and social classes. His nearest challenger, Ricardo Anaya of the conservative National Action Party (PAN) trailed far behind with more than 22 per cent. José Antonio Meade of the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), which has governed for most of the 20th century, took a dismal 16 per cent of the vote.
The anti-establishment candidate had been the frontrunner from the start and had a 25-point lead over his rivals. His victory marks the first time Mexico’s president is from neither the PRI nor the PAN.
Mr López Obrador governed Mexico City between 2000 and 2005, before unsuccessful presidential runs in 2006 and 2012. In 2006, he lost by less than 1 per cent. He alleged fraud and led his supporters in a protest, taking over Mexico City’s main square.
Mr López Obrador sealed comfortable victory in Sunday’s presidential elections after appealing to voter outrage over corruption, insecurity, unspectacular growth (partly thanks to low oil prices) and entrenched inequality that has kept nearly half of the population living under the poverty line. Corruption blighted the outgoing government of president Enrique Peña Nieto, who couldn’t run again because Mexico’s presidents are barred from seeking a second term.
In addition to the presidency, voters also elected a new national Congress – 128 senators and 500 deputies – governors as well as representatives to state congresses, mayors and municipal councils.
Mr López Obrador’s coalition, led by his Movement For National Regeneration (Morena), won a majority in Congress, which would allow Amlo to pass legislation with ease. Morena, which only registered as a party in 2014, also captured the mayor’s office of Mexico City.
Amlo, who takes office on December 1, will be Mexico’s most powerful president in more than 30 years.
Mr López Obrador has promised to boost pensions and infrastructure projects across the country, give bursaries and apprenticeships to young people to keep them out of crime, bolster subsidies for farmers, freeze petrol and electricity prices and kick-start the $1.1 trillion economy. He wants to review oil contracts signed as part of the opening up of Mexico’s oil market and to respect those that are clean. He has said he won’t nationalise companies, or quit the North American Free Trade Agreement, a trade pact between Mexico, the US and Canada.
Mr López Obrador has vowed to respect the independence of the central bank and maintain the free-floating peso. He has pledged not to increase Mexico’s debt or run a budget deficit, saying he would pay for his programme by slashing senior bureaucrats’ salaries and cutting waste from government spending.
Amlo has promised to rid the country of corruption but produced no concrete plans on how he will achieve that.
Mr López Obrador’s detractors fear that he will destabilise Latin America’s second-biggest economy, with unsustainable spending.
Photo: ANDES/Micaela Ayala V
