Lopez Obrador Spells Trouble for Mexico
His personalistic presidency threatens years of hard-won institutional gains.
History won’t be so kind.
Photographer: Alejandro Cegarra/Bloomberg via Getty Images
On December 1 Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador’s self-proclaimed Fourth Transformation begins. Yet instead of kicking off a positive transformational change, the new president’s personalistic mission looks to end years of hard-fought institutional gains.
Over the last three decades Mexico has changed. What was once a closed commodity-driven economy is now open, globally competitive and dominated by manufacturing. A nation once known for its few haves and many have-nots has seen extreme poverty fall to 2.5 percent, infant mortality cut to a third, average lifespans rise by a decade, and the number of years children stay in school grow by half. Politically, decades of one-party rule ended in competitive if at times messy democracy.