Jeremy Corbyn lost the U.K.
election but progressive Mexican leader Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, has been
in power for one year. He is carrying out the plans described in his 2018 book
“New Hope for Mexico,” writes Rick Sterling.
By Rick Sterling
TFA Report
TFA Report
With 129 million people,
Mexico is the 10th most populous country in the world. It has the largest
population of any Spanish speaking country and is twice the size of the United
Kingdom.
Mexico is in a period of
profound change. President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) and the Morena
Party are charting a dramatically new path for the country.
From 2000 to 2005 Lopez
Obrador was head of government for Mexico City. He left office with an 84
percent approval rating, according to one study, having implemented 80
percent of his campaign pledges. In 2006 he ran for the presidency as candidate
of the PRD (Party of Democratic Revolution). The election was
extremely controversial, with 49 percent of the population believing it was
rigged against Lopez Obrador. Felipe Calderón was declared the winner.
In 2012 AMLO ran for president
again. And again, there were widespread “irregularities” and Enrique Peña Nieto
declared the winner. Following the election, AMLO founded a new party called
the Movimiento de Regeneración Nacional (MORENA).
Finally, in the 2018 election,
AMLO decisively
defeated the other candidates and his party, MORENA, won a majority in
both the Chamber of Deputies and Senate. He assumed office on Dec. 1, 2018.
New Hope for Mexico
López Obrador analyzed
Mexico’s problems and his solutions in the 2018 book “A New Hope for Mexico.”
He describes how corruption and neoliberal politics have led to “rampant
inequality, shocking poverty, frustration, resentment, hate, and violence.”
AMLO says, “In Mexico the
governing class constitutes a gang of plunderers…the astounding dishonesty of
the neoliberal period (from 1983 to the present) is wholly
unprecedented.” He names the officials and oligarchs who have profited
from privatizing public institutions. He describes how changes implemented
under President Carlos Salinas even took away the right of children to free
education.
López Obrador explains, “The
first thing we must do is to democratize the state and retool it as an engine
of political, economic and social growth. We must rid ourselves of the myth
that development requires blind acquiescence to market forces… Mexico will not
grow strong if our public institutions remain at the service of the wealthy
elites.”
AMLO describes the decline of
Mexico’s industrial infrastructure in the neoliberal period. Banks were bailed
out while “neoliberal technocracy has led to partiality with respect to hiring,
and always at the expense of unions. There have been massive waves of firings.”
AMLO describes ambitious
plans: building sources of renewable energy and refineries to make the country
energy self-sufficient; building a transportation corridor to move containers
between the Atlantic and the Pacific Oceans; guaranteeing crop prices to enable
food self-sufficiency; expanding tourism in the Caribbean, Mayan and Olmec
regions; planting large areas with timber and fruit trees; giving loans to
hundreds of thousands of small farmers; providing training and internships for
youth.
He says that development is
possible by cutting wasteful spending: “By cutting back on purchases of ships,
planes and helicopters…[we will] sell those used by high ranking officials
including the president; we will keep only those used for medical emergencies,
security and public safety… The first priority must be serving the poor. Only
through the creation of a just society will we achieve the revitalization of
Mexico.”
He contrasts his goals for
Mexico with those of the U.S., where the Trump administration has increased
military spending while slashing spending on housing, transportation and
education.
López Obrador believes
neoliberal economic policies have been especially detrimental in villages and
rural areas of Mexico. As a result of these policies, small farmers have lost
their livelihoods and food imports have risen dramatically. He
writes, “The abandonment of our rural areas has taken a heavy toll on
production, has increased migration, and fostered societal breakdown and
violence.”
López Obrador says, “The
crisis of public safety and violence that we face today is the product of a
poorly conceived war on drugs that relies solely on coercive means. The
security crisis that plagues Mexico is a result of a confluence of factors:
poverty, injustice, and exclusion, aggravated by the inefficiency of the
authorities and corruption within the police and the judiciary.”
He proposes to combat police
and judicial corruption, to use the army and navy to protect public safety, to
develop and utilize a National Guard, and to change laws regarding drug use.
Above all, he emphasizes, it is necessary to provide positive alternatives for
youth: “The belief that the deterioration of our social fabric can be combated
only through use of force is profoundly wrong and highly dangerous, as Mexican
history amply confirms.”
During his 2018 presidential
campaign, López Obrador visited several U.S. cities to address Mexican
Americans. His words are relevant for all Americans:
“We must convince and persuade
those who were brainwashed by Trump’s campaign rhetoric… We must reach out to
lower- and middle-class American workers, explaining that their problems are
rooted in the poor distribution of income… We must raise awareness among
Americans of good faith who have been tricked by the propaganda campaign
against Mexicans and foreigners….”
One Year as President
After one year in office, the
AMLO government has significant accomplishments: the minimum salary was dramatically
increased while top government salaries and outlandish pensions
were cut;
small loans and grants are going directly to farmers; five key agricultural
crops have a guaranteed
price; the billion dollar gas-thieving
cartel has been exposed and attacked; a $44 billion infrastructure plan
has been launched; and programs to benefit youth,
the disabled and elderly have begun.
AMLO sets an example of hard
work and transparency. Each day begins with a 7 AM press conference broadcast
on his twitter feed.
The presidential jet is up for sale and he flies on commercial airplanes.
During this first year in office, he has not left the country but travels
constantly within Mexico seeing the conditions of hospitals, schools, factories
and the small cities and towns that make up so much of the country. The
presidential palace has been opened to the public.
While AMLO has a 67
percent approval rating, and is steadily implementing
his campaign pledges, there are challenges and opposition. The Mexican
economy has been near recession throughout the year. The bond rating for the
state-owned oil company (Pemex) has been downgraded so
that investment loans will be more expensive. Some major development plans have
significant opposition. For example, indigenous organizations have opposed the
proposed Maya Train. In response, AMLO says the
project will only go ahead if the people want it.
Violence is still a major
problem. As analyst Kurt Hackbarth has written,
“The Mexican right is cynically using a crisis of its own making in an attempt
to destabilize AMLO, taking Mexico’s people as hostages.”
The MORENA majority in
Congress plans to legalize marijuana and create a federal agency to regulate
its sale. But as Hackbarth says, “Legalization
and the targeting of cartel finances must go hand in hand with the slow but
necessary work of reestablishing the presence of a social state that decades of
savage capitalism have allowed to wither: education, health care, housing, arts
and culture, dignified alternatives to cartel employment, and an urgent
redistribution of wealth…” These goals are precisely what is outlined in
AMLO’s book and seemingly where he wants to go.
The changes in Mexico are also
important on the international stage. Through most of the 20th century Mexico
had a foreign policy of non-intervention and independence from Washington. They
maintained relations with Cuba, supported the Sandinistas in Nicaragua, and
broke relations with the Pinochet coup government in Chile. But in recent
decades Mexican foreign policy has been subordinate to Washington. With AMLO
and the MORENA Party in power, Mexico is returning to a foreign policy based on
independence, self-determination and non-interference.
The difference was important
early this year when the U.S. and Canada tried to impose a new government on
Venezuela. The subordinate Latin American countries went along with
Washington. Mexico
did not.
As the recent coup in Bolivia
unfolded, President Evo Morales’ life was threatened. Mexico sent a plane for
his escape and granted him asylum. AMLO said to
a huge crowd, “Evo was the victim of a coup d’etat! And from Mexico, we tell
the world, ‘Yes to democracy, no to militarism!'”
As the Trump administration
escalates its economic and political attacks on Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua,
Mexico’s independent stance is especially important. AMLO’s administration has
stood up against the U.S. at the Organization of American States and the
anti-Venezuela Lima Group. Recently AMLO welcomed Ecuador’s former socialist
leader Rafael Correa, followed by Cuba’s President Díaz-Canel. Argentina’s
newly elected progressive president, Alberto Fernández, made his first foreign
trip to meet AMLO.
Both internally and
internationally, a new and hopeful process is happening in Mexico.
