Elections in Mexico: Andrés Manuel López Obrador is the last hope



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Catalina Guevara arrived hours ago. She wants to be close to her candidate. First row, right in front of the stage, free view of Andrés Manuel López Obrador. Against the wind and rain here in Chimalhuacán, Señora Guevara (65 years old) is wrapped in a big white banner with "Morena" written in red. This is the name of the alliance of the leftist candidate, who wants to be elected president of Mexico on Sunday.

López Obrador, whom everyone calls AMLO, has failed twice in his fight for the highest office of the state. This time, it seems that Mexicans want to give him a chance. They are angry at traditional parties that do not solve their problems.

For months, the candidate hastened throughout Mexico, in major cities and small communities. No other presidential candidate travels so much. People like that. "He knows what we are missing," says former professor Guevara.

Chimalhuacán is three hours drive from Mexico City. A suburb typical of the metropolis of millions, marked by poverty and violence. President Enrique Peña Nieto is from this region and Chimalhuacán is a bastion of the ruling PRI party.

Nevertheless, 3000 people came that night. The songs of the campaign keep the López Obrador fans happy despite the bad weather. "We are waiting for it, no matter how long it takes," says Catalina Guevara. "He has to save our country, the others have led to the abyss," she says and lists the evils of Mexico: violence, poverty, corruption and no work for young people.

"It's an honor"

Well over an hour later than expected, man climbs onto the stage, which many consider a messiah in Mexico, d & # 39; others as a demagogue. People, many of whom are in retirement age, scream as if the 64-year-old star was a pop star: "It's an honor, estar con obrador," they sing. "It's an honor to be with Obrador".

López Obrador straightens his silver hair, then talks about what his followers want to hear: Scholarships for High School Students, Pension Guarantee for the Elderly, Fixed Prices for Farmers. Whatever the case may be, Mexico should import less. Corn and gasoline, they could produce the land themselves. It looks a bit like "Mexico first".

He wants to finance this by halving the salaries of civil servants and the fight against corruption. The messages are simple, sometimes flat, but the audience applauds.

Finally, López Obrador always promises: "I'll be back, as president."

In fact, the polls see the candidate with his new "Movement for the Renewal of Mexico" (Morena) with just under 50% of clbadical festivals.

The newcomer Ricardo Anaya gets 27%. But the 39-year-old man, who competes for the ideologically vague left-right alliance of PAN and PRD, acts as a dogmatic high school student. It marks with parts of the middle clbad and students. "But he does not speak the language of people like AMLO," says sociologist Alberto Aziz Nacif of the CIESAS research center. The former secretary of the party treasury, Jose Antonio Meade, whom the PRI sends in the race, is considered to have no chance. He is in third place with 23%.

Pure Despair

The anger of the Mexicans over the PRI party corruption government is so great that many choose López Obrador out of sheer desperation. Worse, so the badumption, it could not come anyway anyway. President Enrique Pena Nieto promised six years ago that everything would be better during his tenure. Fewer deaths in the drug war, less corruption, more growth and less price thanks to structural reforms.

The fact is that everything has gotten worse. 32,000 murders will be estimated this year, twice as many as four years ago. Serious violations of human rights, including the disappearance of the 43 students of Ayotzinapa in September 2014, are related to the mandate of Peña Nieto

On the Corruption Index of Transparency International, Mexico lost 30 places under Pena Nieto and 135th with Russia The energy sector has a main effect: rising prices for gasoline and electricity. Four out of ten Mexicans can not afford all the products in the basket

The established parties are fighting

The leftist candidate finds special support for these 50 million Mexicans living in poverty. He devotes to him his electoral campaign, he is particularly strong in his interests. López Obrador is the only candidate who really wants to change the status quo and wants to reign for half of the poor and excluded in Mexico, says journalist Jorge Zepeda Patterson. "Mexico can not stand anymore that governments make politics only for the upper part of the social pyramid."

However, they fear that the leftist candidate wants to abolish the liberal and open orientation of his economy. Above all, employers' badociations fear the country's isolation under López Obrador. His economic adviser Alfonso Romo dispels these concerns. "We are not radical, everything else is" defamatory campaigns. "

However, the incumbents are still trying to prevent López Obrador at all costs, relying on dirt campaigns as they did in 2006 and 2012. At the end of the year, they were still trying to prevent López Obrador. time, it was said López Obrador is a "threat to Mexico" that he will turn the country into a second Venezuela, and this year, voters are threatened with anonymous phone calls in which dark voices make false statements about left-wing candidate Destroying institutions

But it does not seem that Mexicans are impressed.

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