On June 3 at 7 am, Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (known as “AMLO”) appeared with a broad smile in his daily forum, this morning (“tomorrow”) broadcast live five days a week on television and which he has provided since the beginning of his mandate in 2018. “I am very happy, really very happy” commented the day after the victory of his second candidate, Claudia Sheinbaum, widely elected with 35.9 million votes (59.3%), 6 million more than during her own victory, in 2018. Tuesday 1Ahem In October, she will succeed him as president of Mexico.
The left not only retained the presidency but also won a majority in Congress, allowing it to amend the Constitution in September, the last month of the president’s six-year term. Since then, “AMLO” maintains that smile, offering a farewell tour with Claudia Sheinbaum, repeating that it will be a “excellent president” while she presents him as “the best head of state in the history of Mexico.”
“AMLO” comes out of power with more than 75% favorable opinions, an unprecedented score that his runner-up inherited. During his presidency, the majority of Mexicans saw their economic conditions improve, the minimum wage doubled and 9 million of them escaped poverty. But with this popular support, the new president also receives a more complicated legacy, that of security policy that began with a betrayal. Although the outgoing president had promised “demilitarize the country”, By rejecting the war against drug trafficking started in 2006 by his predecessor, Felipe Calderón, he instead gave almost full powers to the military in matters of security.
“AMLO” chose to avoid confrontation with criminal groups so as not to fuel violence. “People’s lives are worth more than the capture of a criminal, we must pacify the country” he often said. To achieve a certain social peace, as Mexico knew it thirty years ago, it deployed a record number of law enforcement officers – almost 300,000 – including the new national guard drawn from the former federal police and controlled by the military.
“I wanted to establish a way of coexistence with drug traffickers by putting red lines so that they would not cross them, explains Falko Ernest, security expert at the NGO Crisis Group. But with almost two hundred heavily armed criminal groups in much of the territory, and no longer four as in 1990, this strategy has barely worked. »
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