Mexico: The Magic Man

MEXICO

Magic Man

To call it a landslide would be an understatement.

After two previous failed presidential bids, leftist Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, popularly known as AMLO, dominated Mexico’s July 1 elections, securing 53 percent of the vote, according to the National Electoral Institute which certified the vote Sunday.

Not only that but his five-year-old political party, the National Regeneration Movement (Morena), now controls both houses of Congress and at least five governorships.

Post-victory, AMLO faces a laundry list of challenges to bring campaign promises to fruition – ones that will not only impact Mexico’s future, but also that of the entire region.

The question on everybody’s mind is Mexico’s relationship with the United States, particularly regarding immigration and renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), wrote the Hill.

Lopez Obrador was an opponent of NAFTA back in the 1990s when it went into effect, and some worry that his hard-left ideology will influence the tenor of negotiations.

“We’re very concerned about having a situation like Venezuela just south of the border,” Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas), chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, told the Hill.

But others say Lopez Obrador is a pragmatist and will work to save the deal without compromising Mexico’s standing on the global stage, wrote Jonah Shepp for New York magazine. After all, three-quarters of Mexico’s exports are to the US, though only about half that total is covered by NAFTA, Bloomberg reported.

On the immigration front, AMLO is under pressure to halt the flow of migrants from Central and South America through Mexico toward the US, wrote Vox. Tough border controls and family separation at the American border have placed Lopez Obrador in an adversarial position with US President Donald Trump over the issue.

Instead of bending to the Trump administration, Lopez Obrador has said he’ll turn inward to fight corruption, rampant violence and migration, and invest heavily in local infrastructure and social programs.

He says he’ll be able to do so without busting the budget by trimming government salaries and recovering money lost to corruption, but details of those plans remain unclear, Vanda Felbab-Brown wrote for the Brookings Institution.

There are signs, however, that AMLO isn’t just another fast-talking populist.

On Friday, he announced a plan for negotiating peace in the nation’s drug war, including amnesty or reduced jail time for foot soldiers who admit guilt and reparations for some victims, Reuters reported. AMLO hopes the plan will help provide paths to employment for youth caught up in the drug trade, stemming violence and migration in the process.

He reportedly also had a cordial phone call with President Trump after the election, and said he’s determined not to rock the boat: “We are not going to get into fights,” he told Mexico’s Televisa TV network, according to Vox.

With his broad electoral mandate, AMLO will have some flexibility to experiment with policies and his relationships with other leaders, and “might still prove to be a transformational figure,” Leon Krauze wrote for the Washington Post.

But, he added, “the question persists: Where will Mexico turn next if its new president fails to work his magic?”