AMLO is approaching six months of government and Mexico is still waiting for the fourth transformation

After his big win last year, Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, He promised a great transformation of the country, comparable to the independence of Spain and the Mexican revolution.

But five months after the beginning of his term, the new Mexico claims to build It looks a lot like old Mexico that he vowed to leave behind.

Corruption was a big problem for López Obrador during his campaignIt's a national scourge that he's committed to eradicating. However, since taking office, he has not announced any major lawsuits against officials or other personalities for corruption.

Beyond, in his first three months, his government has awarded more than 70% of its contracts directly, without call for tenders, according to Mexicanos Against Corruption and Impunity, an organization of investigative journalism, which symbolizes a radical change in López Obrador's promise to break with this tradition. Mexican politics.

With regard to security, another fundamental problem for Mexico during the campaign He promised to remove the army from the streets, which would change a controversial strategy to fight crime that has led to widespread violations of human rights.

However, López Obrador has finished guarantee the role of the army in national securitywhile Mexico's homicide rates reach their highest levels in more than two decades.

With regard to migration, López Obrador began his term by welcoming migrants heading north and criticizing the previous government's approach to repression. But recently, his leadership has taken a tougher line and has increased the number of detentions and expulsions of people from Centroamericand other countries entering Mexico.

Far from thwarting the severe measures taken by US President Donald Trump, along the border, the Mexican president often supports them, perhaps to avoid a fight with your most important trading partner.

"He makes grandiose statements: "Neoliberalism is over", "Corruption is over""said Carlos Bravo Regidor, political badyst in Mexico City. He is more anxious to communicate an intense message of change than the difficult task of making this change"

López Obrador also alarmed many Mexicans for their threatening statements against the media, including their warnings that journalists should "behave" or say: "If you go that way, you know what's going on." A disturbing warning in one of the most dangerous countries in the world to practice journalism. At least six journalists have been killed since the beginning of the current government.

Last weekend, about six thousand protesters took to the streets to demand the resignation of López Obradorfrustrated by their polarizing language and mistrustful of their management policies.

However, the president remains very popular in the country: the latest survey approval rate over 60%. This is largely because it understands the historical distance that existed between the leaders of the nation and its people, and is determined to close this gap.

López Obrador has put the presidential plane on sale and now uses commercial flights to get around the country. He transformed the presidential palace into a public cultural center. Cut the highest salaries of public sector employees and raise the lowest, and said that all public servants are required to report their holdings and possible conflicts of interest.

These actions reflect your interest for ordinary citizens, a rarity among the country's leaders whose excesses and indifference are ancient traditions of Mexican politics.

A spokesman for the president said the new government had also asked for other changes, like the constitutional reform that ranks corruption, fuel theft and electoral fraud as a serious crime. According to the office of the President, further legislative changes are planned in areas such as labor legislation and education.

López Obrador also announced a wide range of new programs for the poor, a central promise of his campaign. He said that if he succeeds, his programs could lift about 20 million people out of poverty during his six-year term, despite widespread questions about how he will pay for all these initiatives.

"For the first time in decades, a president speaks to the majority of Mexicans who feel not only excluded but despised"said Carlos Heredia, badociate professor at CIDE, a university in Mexico City.

The new president also has a majority in both houses of the legislature, which gives him a considerable advantage. As the opposition is divided, his power is poorly controlled and this gives him great freedom to complete his program, but it also led critics to worry about their combative attitude.

His political dominance was demonstrated at the beginning of his term when he canceled a $ 13 billion airport project, a decision that cost the nation dearly because the bondholders who supported it were rewarded.

But López Obrador has conquered many Mexicans with his unusual availability, especially for the TV news conferences that he gives every morning at seven in the morning.

From his podium, he answers questions about the events of the day and talks about everything from baseball infrastructure.. On the contrary, his predecessor, Enrique Peña Nieto, held only a few press conferences throughout his tenure.

These sessions also show the erratic side of López Obrador: his susceptibilities, his rudeness and his tendency to respond with long and confusing monologues.

His multiple public complaints prompted his supporters to also attack journalists, which caused a great deal of confusion among many of them.

"Not only does he send this message to the people, He also sends it to governors and presidents of municipalities across the country."said Juan Pardinas, director of Reforma newspaper, one of the president's favorite targets. "These types of attacks have a cascading effect."

The government describes these clashes as a healthy dynamic that should be normal for any democratically elected leader. After all, the means "criticize the government and exercise its right to dissent", said the presidential press office in a statement. "And, in the same way, we respond and discuss daily without hatred or resentment."

Of course, they are still the first days of his administration and even his critics acknowledge that it will take time for anyone to solve Mexico's deep problems.

López Obrador says his government is already solving the problems, including the unbridled violence in the country. "We checked the situation, according to our data"he said at a press conference in mid-April. The number of murders, he said, "has not increased."

It was not known whether he had in his possession any data other than those published by his government, which show that homicides in 2019 are going faster than in 2018, the worst year since the publication of the statistics by the government.

The president's strategy to combat violence also resembles the previous policies he had denounced.

The last two governments have allowed the army to lead the fight against drug traffickers, an approach that did not stop the traffic or the violence. During the campaign, López Obrador promised to take a different approach.

Then, shortly before taking office, he seemed to change his mind and proposed a new security force under military command composed of military personnel and the federal police to fight crime all over the country.

Although the force, called the National Guard, is now under civilian control and no commander is an active member of the army, Some critics wonder if the new approach is only a name change from the old strategy.

The government says it must act immediately to reduce violence. Protect human rights, a historically low point for the army, the authorities say they have signed an agreement with the United Nations Training.

In general terms, officials argue that investments in programs to tackle the origins of the problem, poverty and lack of opportunity are also part of the president's national security strategy.

Some policies of López Obrador They seem to be inspired by the past.

In energy policy, for example, he plans to spend billions of dollars on a refinery, relying on the financial solvency of his country in the pursuit of what he calls energy sovereignty. Some badysts say the president wants to go back to the days when governments around the world were pushing national energy companies seen as a source of national pride and development engines.

"It's a president of the sixties who launched into the present"said Jorge Chabat, professor of political science at the University of Guadalajara. "The main problem of López Obrador is that he was born with 50 years of delay".

Instead of continuing with openness to private investment in the energy sector initiated by his predecessor, the president has halted it. Now Spend public money trying to restore the dominance of the two energy giants, the oil company Pemex and the Federal Electricity Commission.

"I think there is a lot of ideology behind"said David Shields, editor-in-chief of Energy a Debate, an energy magazine, "They want to go in a nationalist direction."

Energy badysts say the strategy will be costly and unproductive, especially at Pemex, which is struggling with debt. more than 100 billion dollars while oil production It is approaching its lowest level in four decades.

Migration is one of the areas where the new president made controversial decisions.

When he took office in December, López Obrador promised to have a humanitarian approach towards migrants, moving away from the more rigid policies implemented by his predecessor, Enrique Peña Nieto.

In January, in what may have been your most risky initiative, his government began offering migrants from Central America a one-year humanitarian visa this allows them to work and travel anywhere in Mexico. But in a few weeks, generosity stopped.

After what more than 13,000 people applied for the permit (Many say they were encouraged to visit Mexico after learning about the new program) the initiative was canceled.

Since then, the management of López Obrador has adopted an increasingly harsh policy against undocumented migration, apparently in response to pressure from the Donald Trump government and Mexican communities overwhelmed by the flow of migrants from Central America and other places.

López Obrador says that he remains committed to treating migrants with dignity and plans to invest billions of dollars in southern Mexico and Central America tackling poverty that drives people to look for economic opportunities elsewhere.

And even he says that he does not give in to the pressures of Trump, few believe it.

"The debate between pleasing Trump and being compatible with human rights and humanitarian migration policy has defined the government's response to migration."said Heredia, of the CIDE.