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GUADALAJARA, Mexico – Andrés Manuel López Obrador nodded in front of the sea with red t-shirts and faithful waving flag waving on a square in Guadalajara.
Never before has such a crowd welcomed it here. During his previous presidential campaigns, the residents of Guadalajara, the capital of the state of Jalisco, avoided him, judging his platform left too radical
but this time, a few days before the # 39, one of the most important elections in Mexico for decades. "We have had three transformations in the history of our country: our independence, reform and revolution," he told the crowd. . "We will withdraw the fourth."
While corruption and violence eroded Mexico's patience, voters turned to a familiar face of López Obrador, a three-time presidential candidate who once shut down Mexico City. month after a narrow loss, refusing to accept defeat.
Brandishing a deep connection with the poor, built on more than ten years of visits to every corner of this country of 120 million, he managed a staggering advance before the vote of Sunday
If the results of the poll the day of the election, Mr López Obrador – who promised to sell the presidential plane and convert the opulent presidential palace into a public park – could win by a landslide, putting a leader on the left In charge For the first time in decades, it is the second largest country in Latin America.
He is currently 20 to 30 points higher than his closest rival, stunning reversal for a politician whose future was far from clear a few years ago. But a broad disgust of the Mexican political establishment has brought it back to the graces of the electorate.
Now he can face an American president whose setbacks against Mexico have plunged relations between the two nations to their lowest level in recent history. 19659010] But for all the rash and conflicting positions he's taken, Mr. López Obrador has been surprisingly moderate on the subject of President Trump, taking a pragmatic approach that looks a lot like the figures of the Mexican establishment that He hopes to reverse.
"We will maintain a good relationship" with the United States, said López Obrador in an interview. "Or rather, we will aim to have a good bilateral relationship because it is essential."
In fact, Mr. López Obrador gained more than a few comparisons to Mr. Trump.
The two men take on their critics and perceived enemies. Both are suspicious of the press and check their power. A sense of nationalism and nostalgia for a lost past are at the heart of their platforms and their appeal.
But where Mr. Trump is right, Mr. López Obrador goes to the left. And while Trump has made Mexico a favorite target, López Obrador describes the North American Free Trade Agreement as a vital part of Mexico's livelihoods
"I mean, the Brazilians, the French can fight with the US Mexico, for geopolitical reasons, we just can not, "he added. "We must reach an agreement."
For much of his career, Mr. López Obrador focused on two central issues, poverty and corruption, national plagues that he considers as inseparable. For the masses in Mexico, the two pillars of its platform have a powerful appeal.
He promises to increase pensions for older citizens and scholarships for young people. He promises to cut the government's best wages, including his own, and lift the wages of the lowest-paid public workers. He says he's going to fight corruption and use billions of dollars a year in savings to pay for social programs.
Many doubt that it can eliminate corruption or find the promised manna. But after spending the last 18 years wavering between the two dominant parties in Mexico, voters seem more and more willing to try something else.
López Obrador's positions are largely unchanged from his time as a young organizer for indigenous communities in his native state, Tabasco
What has changed is the Mexican political climate
and an increase in violence, pushed voters towards Mr. López Obrador, who held the last election as mayor of Mexico City in 2005.
Beyond, young people, who should represent about 40 % of votes in this election, largely embraced Mr. López Obrador, who at 64, happens to be the oldest candidate of the race.
"It's a bit like a pox on all their homes," said Roberta S. Jacobson, the former US Ambassador to Mexico. "He was the only one who could paint himself as a stranger – and there are many people in Mexico who feel outdoors."
Indeed, the electoral prospects of Mr. López Obrador owe as much to the current president, Enrique Peña Nieto, as to his populist language and promises to take the powerful.
Mexican presidents are only entitled to a six-year term, and Mr. Peña Nieto's term has been marked by corruption. After it was revealed that his wife had bought a luxury home at a steep discount from a government contractor, a federal investigation has cleared him up.
After his administration's response to the disappearance of 43 students was challenged by outside experts, they were essentially expelled from the country. After the appearance of clues of illegal espionage of journalists and human rights activists, a government investigation has not succeeded.
López Obrador now reaps the fruits of the mistakes of Mr. Peña Nieto
Notably, the election debate has little to do with Mr. Trump, who has attacked many aspects of life in Mexico, especially trade and migration. 19659002] But all major candidates in Mexico were united in their opposition to Mr. Trump's threats. The main factors of this election are the domestic problems – corruption, violence, poverty – which end up in the hands of Mr López Obrador.
As for a personal relationship with Mr. Trump, even some of Mr. López Obrador's closest associates said they did not know how Mr. López Obrador could react to the insults that the current Mexican president has taken to his chin
. López Obrador, for his part, says that Mr. Trump simply plays at his base.
"Trump is a politician, more than what people assume, he acts politically, and it worked for him, his anti-immigrant and anti-Mexican rhetoric, the wall," he said. "He exploited a nationalist sentiment in certain sectors of American society."
López Obrador concentrates instead on the inside, frightening many Mexicans by his wish to take the "mafia of power", his shortcut for business and the political elite
He says he can save more than 20 billion dollars a year by attacking corruption, a figure that he uses in speeches but whose the provenance is not clear.
For critics, his crusade is representative of the dangers that a presidency of López Obrador might bring in. Some fear that it will oversimplify the transplant problem and the task of eradicating it – as well as the price of its gra
These same critics note that when he ran Mexico, despite his great popularity, he was unable to get rid of corruption.
López Obrador is well aware of how Mexicans, who have long suffered at the hands of the rich and powerful, can be drawn into his orbit.
In style and message, he expresses simplicity. He lives in a modest two-story townhouse, piloting a coach for his campaign events and owns only a handful of costumes
But behind the humility of his approach is a complex and flawless ambition to reshape the Mexico. For some, including without a doubt Mr. López Obrador himself, he is a little messiah, the leader chosen to heal the ills of his nation. "He sincerely thinks that it's the best result for Mexico," said Kathleen Bruhn, a professor at the University of California at Santa Barbara who studied the career of López Obrador. "But I do not think it's incompatible with him who wants to accumulate a lot of power."
"People talk about his rhetoric and how he will be like Hugo Chávez," the polarizing and domineering former president of Venezuela, Ms. Bruhn added. But "there is a series of pragmatism which, I hope, will come out of it".
For others, his driving temperament and sense of destiny are disaster recipes.
López Obrador often divides the world in two: the good against the elite, who stole the country from equality and justice.
His division between good and evil extends to critics and institutions that he feels do not serve his agenda. Many worry that his supposed moral authority will put him at odds with the same institutions he should protect.
He fought with the Mexican media, accusing him of corruption and prejudice. And while the news media have long survived thanks to the government's money, which exerts a strong influence on the cover, his anger is a sign of a disturbing feature: Inability to criticize
. attack the critics personally, and is a master of the insult.
The members of the rich elite are called fifis, the bourgeois equivalent. But civil rights and pro-democracy groups are sometimes also rejected by López Obrador, although they are among the few counterpoise to rampant impunity in Mexico.
Many of the most prominent supporters of the fight against corruption fear a López Obrador Presidency, worried that their nascent movement will be anything but frozen from the discussion.
When Mr. López Obrador was mayor of Mexico City, the organizers planned a march to protest the growing number of kidnappings, a tragic outcome of the nation's war He first refused to meet the organizers, derisively referring to their initiatives as projects of the rich.
Maria Elena Moreira, who now heads the Common Cause non-profit group and helped organize the march, said she was concerned that Mr. López Obrador would marginalize outside efforts to improve the democracy in Mexico.
"You have to understand how to institutionalize this change, not to tie it all to one single mission," she added,
López Obrador essentially campaigned full-time for more than a decade, and his party, Morena, is fully built around him.Now he is at the dawn of the politics of collapse in Mexico, leaving the parties long standing on the brink of ruin
There was little thought that a left-wing leader could take the lead in Mexico, which remains a very conservative Catholic nation by the standards of Latin America.
But Mr. López Obrador has succeeded in bringing together a broad movement that includes trade unions, right-wing conservatives, religious groups, traditional leftists and some of the same. In some ways, what Mr. López Obrador has constructed resembles Institutional Revolutionary Party of the current President, known as PRI – a party eager to incorporate just about everyone in its walls in pursuit. power. Some PRI members have already defected to López Obrador's party, fearing future beating.
He also appealed to a television director of a station largely dependent on the government's money – precisely the one he attacked as a compromise – to serve as his secretary of education if he wins.
While some see its closeness to the unions and the far right as contradictory, others view the alliances as evidence of its pragmatic side.
As mayor of Mexico City, he maintained strict spending limits and worked with the private sector, including telecommunications magnate Carlos Slim. He built a highway to ease congestion, a project that greatly benefited the middle class, not its typical base.
When he was elected president, he promised to practice fiscal austerity. To reassure the business community, he promised not to nationalize companies.
When he left his post, Mr. López Obrador enjoyed an approval rating of nearly 80%. The presidency did not seem out of the question. But the Conservative National Action Party, which held the presidency, managed to portray him as a radical and a threat to democracy.
In a hotly contested battle, Mr. López Obrador lost less than 1% in the 2006 elections, and almost immediately took to the streets to protest what he said was widespread fraud. Its supporters invaded the central square of the city center and blocked one of the main arteries of the city, Reforma Avenue.
He inaugurated an investiture ceremony and appointed a phantom cabinet to govern the nation, proclaiming himself the legitimate president.
The movement seemed to validate some of the harshest criticisms of him, alienating some of his supporters. Eventually, he packed and moved, and many commentators thanked him.
He lost again in 2012, with a much larger margin. But López Obrador continued to build his coalition and prepare for another race.
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