When Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador narrowly lost his first presidential race in 2006, he cried fraud, demanded a vote recount and called for large street protests that paralyzed Mexico City for seven weeks. And when his complaints fell flat at the electoral court, the leftist leader proclaimed himself the country’s “legitimate president” and launched a parallel government.
Critics dismissed it as a waste of time. But during several years as the face of Mexico’s “legitimate government,” AMLO, as he is known, toured every municipality in the nation, slowly but steadily shifting the foundation of Mexican politics. After another lost election in 2012, and the creation of his own National Regeneration Party, he won the 2018 vote in a landslide.
But just like Lopez Obrador didn’t need an elected office to become the most influential politician in the nation of about 128 million, he’s set to remain a powerful figure once his six-year term ends in October.
With his popularity north of 60% thanks in no small measure to programs that provide cash payments to many Mexicans, real wage gains and an anti-corruption rhetoric, the larger-than-life AMLO will cast a shadow over whoever succeeds him. That’s most likely his protege Claudia Sheinbaum, who holds a 25-percentage point lead over opposition candidate Xochitl Galvez ahead of the June 2 vote, according to opinion polls.
Sheinbaum has been careful to craft government proposals that remain closely aligned with current policies. Galvez, on the other hand, has struggled to offer an appealing alternative to voters unhappy about AMLO’s poor security track record — polls show it’s his biggest vulnerability.
Sheinbaum has so far managed to keep Galvez at bay in the campaign. An energy engineer and former mayor of Mexico City, she has the experience to build her own presidency out from under AMLO’s influence, but that will require tackling some challenges head on.
A Sheinbaum government would face the need to foster a more business-friendly environment if Mexico is to fully take advantage of the global supply-chain realignment known as nearshoring. So far, companies that have chosen Mexico to relocate closer to the vast US consumer market have done so with little to no help from AMLO’s administration. Even so, that initial capital influx has sustained such a rally in the foreign-exchange market that the national currency was dubbed the “super peso.”
Whether the next president seizes the opportunity or squanders it will determine how much investment the country will be able to attract, how fast its economy will grow, and potentially how wealthy its population will become.
A fiscal adjustment will be all but unavoidable, either by cutting expenses or raising taxes or trying to broaden the tax base, each option with its own set of political challenges. Then there’s the drag from Pemex, the world’s most indebted oil major that has remained afloat thanks to growing support from the Mexican Treasury — a strategy that if unchecked may eventually cost the country its investment grade.
Morena, the Spanish-language acronym for the party Lopez Obrador founded in 2011, will play a key role in the future of AMLO’s policies. It has won states long controlled by the opposition, but it’s unclear whether it will gain two-thirds of the positions in both houses of congress, a super majority that would allow the president to pass major constitutional reforms that have eluded Lopez Obrador.
AMLO’s legacy leaves some tough decisions for his successor. — Walter Brandimarte and Maya Averbuch