Amlo’s strongman act is weakening Mexico
The president’s attacks on national institutions threaten democracy and stability
Gideon Rachman
© James FergusonAndrés Manuel López Obrador does not like leaving his homeland.
The president of Mexico skips G20 summits.
Partly as a result, Amlo, as he is often known, has a much lower international profile than other strongman leaders — such as Recep Tayyip Erdoğan of Turkey or Narendra Modi of India.
But, back home, López Obrador dominates the political scene just as completely as an Erdoğan or a Modi.
He starts every workday with a 7am press conference that typically lasts hours.
From the presidential podium, he likes to denounce his enemies as a corrupt “neoliberal” elite, working against ordinary Mexicans.
As president, López Obrador has undermined key state institutions — driving out independent civil servants, promoting loyalists and party hacks and denouncing judges who displease him.
López Obrador’s erratic and egocentric political style has now reached a truly dangerous stage.
On Sunday, hundreds of thousands of protesters turned out across Mexico to protest against a new law, promoted by the president, that will gut funding for the country’s National Electoral Institute, which runs the country’s elections.
In Mexico last week, I found virtual unanimity among academics, businesspeople and political commentators that the country’s democracy is now in real danger.
“Amlo has a done a lot of bad things,” remarked one prominent businessman, “but this is the worst, the most dangerous, by far.”
López Obrador himself is unlikely to benefit directly from these changes.
The Mexican constitution limits presidents to a single six-year term in office, and it is widely assumed that he will step down next year.
But he is likely to handpick his successor by choosing the presidential candidate for his party, Morena.
His electoral “reforms” could then help local Morena officials to fix elections.
That would return Mexico to the system of corrupt one-party rule, and rigged elections, that blighted the country for most of the 20th century.
That kind of regression would be a tragedy for Mexico and a threat to the US.
A slide back into corruption and autocracy is the last thing that Mexico needs, as it struggles to deal with gang- and drug-related violence that has seen 420,000 people killed and over 100,000 currently “missing” since 2000.
Mexico’s total population is 132mn.
Pervasive corruption is already a huge problem in local government, where officials are often faced with a choice of plata o plomo — silver or a lead bullet.
Hollowing out Mexico’s federal institutions would allow the well-funded drug cartels to gain even more of a grip on the country.
Further erosion of the rule of law would also make it much harder for Mexico to attract investment.
That would be a huge missed opportunity, at a time when many US multinationals are looking to relocate production from China.
For the US itself, a functioning Mexican state is crucial to any efforts to control America’s southern border and to crack down on the trafficking of people and drugs.
The deadly fentanyl epidemic in America is closely linked to a surge in the production of the drug in Mexico.
Drugs, migrants and border security are likely to be critical issues in the 2024 US presidential election.
The Biden administration badly needs Mexico’s co-operation on all these issues and so has been inclined not to make a fuss about democratic erosion in Mexico.
President Joe Biden paid a cordial visit to López Obrador in Mexico City last month.
But if the US turns a blind eye to what is happening there, it is likely to get some nasty surprises.
One factor making it easier to dismiss the dangers posed by López Obrador is that, as even his critics concede, he is popular and boasts approval ratings of about 60 per cent.
His gift for the populist gesture — cutting his own salary and taking economy class flights — burnish his man-of-the-people credentials.
Increased social payments and pensions go down well.
It is also true that López Obrador has avoided overt authoritarianism.
Critical journalists and academics in Mexico do not generally get arrested or imprisoned, as happens in other strongman states.
He does, however, often denounce his critics by name in his morning press conference.
The commentators he singles out then often get a surge of threats.
Ciro Gómez Leyva, a prominent journalist called out by the president, was recently the subject of an assassination attempt.
Over 40 journalists have been murdered during López Obrador’s term in office.
Mexico is regarded as among the most dangerous countries in the world for reporters.
After this weekend’s demonstrations, the political atmosphere in Mexico is likely to get even more heated.
Opponents of the electoral law cling to the hope that the Supreme Court will strike it down.
But, for that to happen, eight of 11 judges must rule it unconstitutional.
Two justices are thought to be out-and-out López Obrador loyalists, and two others are regarded as sympathetic.
It will be close.
López Obrador wants to be one of the most significant presidents in Mexican history, the architect of a “fourth transformation” to rank with the War of Independence, the 1858-61 Reform War and the Mexican Revolution of the 1910s.
If he succeeds in fatally undermining Mexico’s democratic institutions, López Obrador will indeed go down in history — for the worst of reasons.
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