Most Mexicans are unhappy about the state of the country. Yet the outcome of the election on June 6th hinges on whether the president's personal popularity outweighs his woeful record
“Andrés Manuel is different,” says Heberto Priego Colomé, a pensioner sitting in the shade in Tepetitán, a settlement of 2,000 souls in Tabasco state in southern Mexico. “He’s normal. He’s sincere. He talks to the people.” He has also “sent lots and lots of help”. The old man gestures to a fancy new plaza with a basketball court and a diving board from which younger folk can plunge into a river. When the president visited, he threw a party on the plaza.
Mr López Obrador has attracted far less global attention than other populist leaders. But look closer and he appears astonishingly similar to them . In his eyes, Mexicans fall into two groups: the people, whose authentic will he represents, and the elite, who are to blame for all Mexico’s ills. He sees himself as on a historic mission to sweep away the rotten habits of the past and establish a republic of virtue.
The toll is partly down to Mexico’s crowded cities and overweight population. But a panel commissioned by the World Health Organisation also found “major deficiencies in decision-making” by the government. Mr López Obrador was slow to act, set aside too little money and slashed research funding. He failed to wear a mask in public and said Mexicans could curb the spread of the virus by not lying or stealing.
The president’s policies are an eclectic mix of statism, nationalism and nostalgia for the 1970s. Take energy. Back in the 1970s, oil prices were high and Mexico’s state oil monopoly was a mainstay of the economy, especially in Mr López Obrador’s home state. Like a boutique that stocks bell-bottoms, he is trying to revive a questionable old fashion.
Under the slogan of “hugs, not bullets”, he has taken a soft approach to gangs. In 2019 he freed a drug kingpin’s son, hoping to buy a respite from the killing. He did not get one. The implied message to the gangs has been “You can do what you like and we won’t ask for anything in return,” says Jorge Castañeda, an ex-foreign minister.
His social programmes have done some good. His pensions rises and the minimum wage have helped many. His schemes to support young and rural people are well-meaning. Some 330,000 Mexicans aged 18-29 get 4,310 pesos a month through year-long apprenticeships. Over 420,000 old rural folk are paid to plant trees.