New Mexico leader torn between principles, pragmatism
MEXICO CITY: Veteran leftist Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador assumes the Mexican presidency vowing to champion the poor and contain business elites he says have conspired with politicians for years to fuel corruption and lawlessness.
After a busy five-month transition that has spooked financial markets, Lopez Obrador will take responsibility for fixing escalating gang violence, chronic poverty and widespread discontent with the political class in Mexico.
To do that, the anti-establishment former Mexico City mayor plans to increase pensions, create a militarised Guardia Nacional nationwide police force, change the penal code to amnesty lesser criminals, and hold referendums to back his policies.
An admirer of Mexican President Lazaro Cardenas, who nationalised Mexico’s oil industry in 1938, Lopez Obrador will be the first leftist to run the country since it began moving from one-party rule towards democracy in the 1980s.
Thanks to a landslide victory and a coalition that controls both houses of Congress, he enters office as one of the most powerful presidents in decades.
The 65-year-old took a conciliatory approach to investors during the campaign, but has struggled to reconcile deeply-held personal ideals with his pragmatic acknowledg- ment that he needs a stable economy and investment to achieve his goals.
He also wants to improve ties with US President Donald Trump by crafting a deal to contain migration from Central America in exchange for US aid to help develop the violent, impoverished region.
“Mexico is going to be a safe country, a country that really encourages investment,” he said in a video address this week, promising his inauguration speech would be business-friendly.
But also this week, he stepped up threats to unpick outgoing President Enrique Pena Nieto’s agenda, slam- ming the latter’s “neo-liberal” opening of the oil industry to foreign capital.
The months since the election have been a white-knuckle ride for investors. Markets gyrated to abrupt decisions backed by what Lopez Obrador calls participatory democracy, but what critics see as autocratic populism.
On Oct 29, he cancelled a US$13bil (RM54bil) new Mexico City airport, alleging a taint of corruption, leading investors to dump shares, bonds and the peso currency.
Though it has since pared some of those losses, the Mexican bourse is still close to three-year lows.
Lopez Obrador, who long opposed the airport, justified the decision with an opaque referendum his party organised in which barely 1% of the electorate voted. He said the cancellation sent a message there would be a clear division between political and economic power in Mexico.
He has since doubled down on referendums, while reacting sharply to criticism, fueling concerns he may push the country in a more partisan direction.
Juan Carlos Romero Hicks, lower house leader of the opposition center-right National Action Party (PAN), said Mexico needed to brace for uncertainty in months ahead, arguing Lopez Obrador had “lost touch with reality”.