MEXICO CITY – In an election many
Mexicans hope will be a turning point for a country beset by decades of
corruption, violence and enduring poverty, voters turned to a left-wing
populist some supporters refer to as a “messiah.” A savior from the two
major parties that have failed to deliver on promises of reform, in the
eyes of many voters.
For months, polls predicted Andres Manuel Lopez
Obrador, a 64-year-old two-time presidential runner up, would win the
election by a landslide. When the National Elections Institute announced
preliminary results Sunday, authorities predicted he would win with
between 53 percent and 53.8 percent of the vote, a remarkable margin not
seen in the country for many years.
“My presidential vote went to AMLO,” said voter Laura
Rodriguez-Verdin outside a polling location in Mexico City. “The reason I
voted for him is because I believe he is the only person who has the
interest at heart of people who most need help in this country. People
with poor education and poor health services.”
Early in his career, Obrador lived in a dirt-floor
shack, built houses for the poor and marched for environmental
protections against the giant state-owned, state-run oil company, PEMEX.
As Mexico City's mayor in 2005, he drove an old Nissan Sentra. Today,
he claims not to own a credit card or checking account and says he will
sell the presidential plane, turn the presidential palace into a park
and live in his tiny townhouse in Mexico City.
“I voted for Andres Manuel for president because I like
his proposals,” said Mexico City resident Diana Ortiz. “He’s not
promoting the a rich government, the powerful guys. Instead he wants to
be empower as much to the people here. He wants a more democratic vote.”
Why does the president of Mexico matter? The U.S.
shares a 2,000-mile border. Mexico has the second-largest economy in
Latin America, it's the third-largest trading partner of the U.S. and a
major oil exporter, and it plays a key role in two of America’s most
intractable problems, immigration and drugs. Militarily, the two
countries share intelligence on terrorism and security and historically
Mexico played a mediating influence and bulwark against Latin America’s
more radical regimes. Its 6 million illegal workers and millions more
immigrants provide the backbone of America’s agricultural and service
industries, from the kitchens of New York City to hotel rooms in
Chicago.
MEXICO ELECTIONS CENTER ON DISGUST WITH CORRUPTION, VIOLENCE
“Out of all the candidates, Andres Manuel is probably
the least enthusiastic about the bilateral relationship with the U.S.,
but he recognizes that the relationship with the U.S. is fundamentally
important,” said Duncan Wood with the Mexico Institute at the Wilson
Center. “His election is going to make life more complicated for the
United States, let's put it like that.”
Roughly 88 million Mexicans are entitled to vote;
officials predicted a 90 percent turnout. One reason is Obrador. The
other is Congress. Between the lower House of Deputies and Mexican
Senate, 630 seats are up for grabs and nine out of 32 governorships are
being voted on.
If Obrador and his party, Morena, perform as expected,
some conservatives worry he will have a majority and a Congressional
mandate to enact sweeping reforms, including free access to the
Internet, a doubling of pensions for the elderly, educational grants for
students, an increase in the minimum wage and subsidies for small
farmers and single mothers.
“The only candidate who was truly successful
positioning himself as an agent of change was AMLO,” said former PAN
party foreign minister Jorge Castaneda, who believes Obrador won the
election based on three issues: violence, corruption and the economy.
“In the last twenty-odd years, this includes the
government I served in, the economy has not grown more than two and a
half percent per year,” Castaneda said. “Mexicans are not finding deep
well-paying jobs, not seeing their living standards improved, not
extracting people from poverty, we’re not reducing levels of inequality
which are among the highest levels in the world.”
Almost 44 percent of Mexicans live below the national
poverty line, earning less than $5 per day, according to the World Bank.
Poverty is most extreme in the rural south, where unemployment and
violence remain highest. Because of those factors, many Mexicans
continue to migrate to the U.S. in hopes of a better life. Last year,
the border patrol apprehended about 110,000 Mexicans at the border.
Obrador has no plans to curb or interfere with those heading to the U.S.
illegally, but hopes U.S. aid and a new NAFTA treaty will improve the
economy and alleviate poverty so Mexicans won’t have to migrate.
“The best way to cooperate, one country with another
one, is to help redevelop the areas that are sending [citizens who want
to migrate] out of Mexico because we are not having economic growth here
and we are not having jobs here,” said Obrador’s campaign manager,
Tatiana Clouthier. “In that way you will not be having a lot of people
wanting to cross because we are able to give them an opportunity in our
country.”
To reduce immigration pressures, Obrador plans to offer
amnesty to farmers who turned to opium and marijuana because they could
not compete with industrial farms in northern Mexico and the U.S. under
NAFTA, which Obrador hopes to renegotiate. Castaneda, who also teaches
at New York University, says Mexico, as America’s third largest trading
partner, doesn’t have much financial leverage -- but the country has
other options.
“Trade over here, immigration here, drugs here,
security and intelligence here - which is a big deal,” he says. “Mexico
has few bargaining chips over trade, but a lot of bargaining chips on
immigration, on drugs, and security. But we’re not using them. Trump is.
For once in my life, I completely agree with him.”
President Trump was not a factor in the election, as
each candidate seemed to resent him equally, as does much of the public.
Instead, anger was directed at Mexico’s ruling elite, whom voters
blamed for rising inequality, corruption and the never-ending drug war.
“This war on drugs is not working,” said voter Hugo
Stewart, an Obrador supporter. “It’s causing a lot of deaths and needs
to be looked at in a different way.”
Violence remains an acute problem in Mexico, with some
25,000 homicides this year, including 133 politicians and 48 candidates
since campaigning began last September, according to one of Mexico’s
leading political consulting agencies, Etellekt.
To reduce the violence, Obrador proposes a softening
the military’s confrontational approach, saying Mexico will no longer
fight America’s drug war since Mexico doesn’t have a consumption
problem.
Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador promised a "transformation" for Mexico amid violence and political scandal.
(AP, File)
“The last 12 years, President [Felipe] Calderon and
President Enrique Pena Nieto started a war towards smugglers or drug
traffic and we’re not having good results,” said Clouthier. “We have to
go from war to peace. And that means going to the root of the problem.
We need development in areas where there is no work.”
Fighting the drug war is just one point of contention
in U.S.-Mexican relations. Another likely is the personality clash of
President Trump and Obrador. Would they get along?
Here are two points of view. Obrador is considered
warm, personable, and smart. He’s written more than 10 books on Mexican
political history. On the other, he is a prominent nationalist, critics
compare him to Venezuelan dictators Hugo Chavez and Nicholas Maduro, and
the fear his moral superiority could turn Mexico into a leftist
autocracy. Obrador wrote a book critical of President Trump, who often
seems to base foreign relations on the personal likability or trust of a
country’s leader. They could be friends or explosive enemies.
“I put the odds on the two abrasive personalities not
getting along,” argues David Shirk, an expert on Mexican affairs at the
University of San Diego. “What you will see is two men speaking their
minds. There will be no bars between them.”
“I completely think they are going to get along,”
counters Ana Quintana, at the Heritage Foundation's Allison Center for
Foreign Policy Studies. “I think AMLO is tapping into something in
Mexico just like Trump tapped into the U.S. - that large pool of the
population that has been disenfranchised by the political and economic
elite.”
Trump, unlike previous U.S. presidents, did not visit
Mexico in his first year in office. National Security Advisor John
Bolton raised that possibility
on “Fox News Sunday,” saying, “I think in this kind of context, having the two leaders get together, may produce some surprising results.”
BOLTON FIRES BACK AT CRITICS OF TRUMP-PUTIN MEETING
And while it could happen, prominent columnist Pancho Garfias with the newspaper Excelsior said it may not end well.
“Lopez Obrador is not stupid, so he will try to get
along with Mr. Trump,” he said. “I think Mr. Trump knows that Mexico is
better as a friend than hostile, but I don’t think Mr. Lopez Obrador
will shake hands with Trump. I think he will never be together in the
same picture.”
