Mexico’s new president remains divisive
Lopez Obrador takes office today
MEXICO CITY — Mexico will embark on an era of high expectations and profound uncertainty Saturday under the leadership of one of the country’s most enigmatic political figures — Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador.
Mr. Lopez Obrador, who rode populist rhetoric and a vow of a national transformation to a landslide election in July’s balloting, is set to begin a six-year term as Mexico’s 57th president.
The inauguration will mark the stunning revival of a twice-defeated presidential aspirant who ran under the leftist banner of his own party — and who represents a stark departure from Mexico’s recent run of mostly drab, technocratic leaders.
“I am not going to be a flower pot, I’m not an adornment,” the silver-haired president-elect, who turned 65 this month, warned in a recent YouTube message. “I have a mandate. … The Mexican people want an end to corruption and impunity.”
Despite his overwhelming electoral victory, Mr. Lopez Obrador remains a divisive figure: His supporters laud him as a kind of savior for a Mexico gone terribly awry, while his critics fear the return of an old-style Latin American caudillo, or strongman, poised to turn back Mexico’s slow march toward democracy.
The inaugural guest list includes an eclectic mix of leaders, among them Vice President Mike Pence and a pair of Washington’s key adversaries — the socialist presidents of Venezuela and Cuba, recently dubbed, along with Nicaragua, Latin America’s “troika of tyranny” by John Bolton, U.S. national security adviser.
Mr. Lopez Obrador’s ascendance has buoyed hopes of an improved economic and security panorama for many Mexicans, despite doubts about his ability to govern after years as a noisy dissident denouncing the “mafia of power” — his depiction of Mexico’s long-entrenched ruling classes.
His campaign vows to fight corruption and shrink poverty resonated deeply in a period of desultory economic growth, rising crime and official graft.
More than 4 of 10 Mexicans, in excess of 53 million people, still live in poverty, while the country is on pace to exceed last year’s record of more than 31,000 homicides, and a string of former governors is facing corruption charges. Public outrage with corruption under outgoing President Enrique Pena Nieto fueled Mr. Lopez Obrador’s electoral victory.