Convinced that his role in history is to lead the fourth great transformation of Mexico, Andrés Manuel López Obrador was able to take advantage of the tsunami of frustration and social discontent that runs the world.
Man of simple ideas, president Obrador managed to reap 30 million votes because he knew how to focus the public narrative on the need to address a central problem of the country, the growing gap between the richest and the poorest. His main proposal before this reality is even more basic: the promise to fight corruption frontally. “On notice there is no deception: whoever it is, it will be punished. I include fight partners, officials, friends and family members. ”
Seen from the City of Mexico, the overwhelming and unobjectionable triumph of AMLO in his third attempt to reach the Presidency, seems certainly a major event. The arrival at the National Palace of a character who for decades opposed almost all the modernizing projects of all governments, his victory is certainly relevant. Formed in the era of the Imperial Presidency, the 64 years old man born in Tabasco, was able to become a professional protester, a social activist able to carry political bargain to the limit. From the doors of the oil wells in the Gulf of Mexico, to the Plaza de la Constituciónand Reforma Avenue, he always had the ability to maneuver against El Sistema, that tangle of rules and interests that he had the ability to baptize as “The mafia of the power”.
A moment of serenity and a bit of perspective is enough to recognize the obvious parallelism between the case of “El Peje”in Mexico and that of “Lula” in Brazil. Not only for their training as mass leaders, their three attempts to achieve power through the ballot box, and their main political proposals, but also for the reactions to what both represent as men of power from Wall Street and the old institutions, inside Mexico and abroad.
And although the Lula of 2018 – imprisoned and stained by the smell of corruption almost natural to the type of leadership be built – will surely not be retaken as a model by anyone in the team of the president-elect in Mexico, which is almost predictable is that, as happened at the beginning of Lula’s term in 2003, when AMLO take office formally, on December 1, he will launch his government with an overwhelming approval level, maybe around 80 percent. As gravity law mandates, from that high, the natural move will be down the hill.
With a political capital in the style of the good old days of the PRI -from 1940 with Manuel Ávila Camacho to 1982 with Miguel de la Madrid-, president Obrador will begin to rule with the self-confessedly ambition to be remember as relevant as Miguel Hidalgo and the Independence revolts (1810-1822); Benito Juárez and The Reform (1857-1872), as well as Francisco I. Madero and The Revolution (1910-1917). In top of that he offers to achieve such greatness only in the 5 years and 10 months that is it will last his mandate, officially. Let´s pray for that.
With the conviction of a crusader, President Obrador will begin a government that promises transformations of historical dimension. Its take-off force is unquestionable, although the risks that your project represents also pose formidable challenges.
