The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
New Mexican leader starts promised changes
López Obrador set to tackle some big policy challenges.
MEXICO CITY — Andrés Manuel López Obrador won over Mexican voters by promising a different kind of presidency, making sometimes-theatrical pl edges that many wondered how he would fulfill.
A week into his presidency, he’s holding daily news conference store port on the status of his agenda, making updates that some Mexicans find hopeful and others worrying. His daily briefings mark a radical change from th e previous, more tight-lipped administration.
Since taking office on Saturday, some of his most unusual ideas have already been enacted. The former presidential mansion is now open to the public (and the new Alfonso Cuarón film will soon be projected on its walls). The presidential airplane has been taken to California, where the Mexican government will attempt to sell it in a show of austerity. López Obrador is getting around in an old Volkswagen, rather than a glitzy motorcade.
Now, beyond the symbolic gestures, López Obrador is preparing to tackle some of Mexico’s biggest policy challenges. This week, he said, he will announce a proposal to undo predecessor Enrique Peña Nieto’s education overhaul, though he has released few details, aside from claiming that it was developed“with the consensus of teachers .” In the coming days, López Obrador said, he will speak to President Trump about migration.
On Monday, López Obra- dor ordered a “truth commission” to investigate the disappearance of 43 students in Ayotzinapa in 2014. Security forces have been implicated in the incident, and López Obrador’s effffffffffffort to shed light on what happened has given hope to some of the parents of the disappeared, even as it has raised questions about what a new investigation might yield.
On Tuesday, he struggled to convince investors that despite his recent attacks on neoliberalism — and particularly on Mexico’s newly liberalized energy industry — he won’t stand in the way of a free market. He pointed out Monday, at his first news conference as president, that the markets had gone up du ring th e first day of his term.
“You cannot regulate the market by decree,” he said. “I am in favor of a free market.”
Also Tuesday, López Obrador returned to his stated polic y of capping the salaries of public officials, saying at a news conference, “It is dishonest when an official receives up to 600 thousand pesos a month (about $29,000). That is corruption.”
López Obrador seemed to recognize that some highlevel officials are quietly seething at his proposal. Apparently addressing those who might be displeased, he said, “Then there is the private sector.”
El Universal reported Tuesday that almost 3,000 public employees have filed class-action lawsuits against the government over a law mandating that no bureaucrat can earn more than the president. Because López Obrador set his salary at 108 thousand pesos per month (about $5,250), less than half of his predecessor’s salary, the pay of other public servants also has plummeted. According to El Universal, the penalty for government employees caught receiving a higher salary than the president is 14 years in prison.
On Monday, López Obrador’s nominee for foreign minister, Marcelo Ebrard, met with Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen in Washington. They had been expected to discuss a plan that would force asylum seekers to remain in Mexico while their claims are processed in the United States. But Ebrard called the meeting a “courtesy visit,” and no deal was announced or alluded to.