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HOW WILL AMLO’S PRESIDENCY BE REMEMBERED?  
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Nicolas Allen, Edwin Ackerman, Jacques Coste, Viridiana Rios
May 31, 2024
The Nation
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_ To understand the outgoing president’s popularity—and why not
all leftists love him—Nicolas Allen spoke to three Mexican analysts
from across the progressive political spectrum. _

Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, Mexico’s president, center, greets
attendees during a rally in support of the proposed electoral reform
in Mexico City on November 27, 2022., Jeoffrey Guillemard / Bloomberg
via Getty Images

 

Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador will leave office in
September 2024, concluding his popular—and controversial—six-year
tenure at the National Palace. Riding on a wave of progressive
achievements that include a minimum wage hike and reducing income
inequality, his Morena party successor, Claudia Sheinbaum
[[link removed]],
is forecast to win the June 2 election by between 25 and 30 percent.

Sheinbaum’s reputation as a “continuity candidate
[[link removed]]”
may give her the edge, but she’ll also be inheriting her
predecessor’s thorniest political battles. In some areas, the former
Mexico City mayor is better equipped than the sitting president:
Feminism and gender-related policies are just one field where
Sheinbaum will hopefully improve on the past administration’s
record [[link removed]]. But López
Obrador’s official embrace of austerity––his supporters say to
root out corruption and restore faith in the state––will remain a
flash point. On other matters, whether it’s López Obrador’s use
of the military in government works
[[link removed]] or
attempts to eliminate judicial independence
[[link removed]],
there will be plenty of fodder for those who accuse his and future
Morena administrations of authoritarian drift––and even of
undermining Mexican democracy.

And still, the president’s approval ratings hover above 60 percent
[[link removed]],
almost unheard of for an outgoing head of state (only outdone by
Brazil’s Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in 2011). Meanwhile,
the numbers
[[link removed]] for
other progressive leaders in Latin America are cratering
[[link removed]],
raising the question: What about Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s
tenure can explain such popularity?

To understand the president’s legacy—and why not all leftists love
him—I spoke to three Mexican analysts from across the progressive
political spectrum. Edwin Ackerman
[[link removed]], an associate professor of
sociology at Syracuse University, argues that the president’s most
controversial measures were part of a calculated effort to restore
state capacity in the wake of neoliberalism. Jacques Coste
[[link removed]], a Mexican political columnist,
contends that López Obrador’s shameful legacy was to restore the
previously diminished power of the Mexican armed forces. Political
analyst and author Viridiana Rios
[[link removed]] insists
that the most ambitious goals of the Fourth Transformation were
hobbled by an inability to alter the country’s tax structure.

_—Nicolas Allen_

Nicolas Allen: THE MEXICAN PRESIDENT HAD HIS SUPPORTERS AND
DETRACTORS. THE ONLY THING ON WHICH THEY SEEM TO AGREE IS THAT MEXICO
CHANGED A LOT UNDER HIS ADMINISTRATION. HOW DO YOU RATE THOSE CHANGES?
WHAT IS LÓPEZ OBRADOR’S LEGACY?

Edwin Ackerman: His legacy can be judged on two levels. First, we can
judge his government by its own standards, that is, whether his Morena
administration is really the beginning of a “Fourth Transformation
[[link removed]]” comparable to
Mexico’s War of Independence, the Reform War, and the Revolution. We
can discuss what that would involve.

But AMLO’s legacy can be evaluated at a level where the bar is set a
bit lower. López Obrador took power in Mexico after decades of
neoliberalism [[link removed]-],
which brought the erosion of working-class power and the dismantling
of state capacity. The historical task of the Mexican left
[[link removed]] in that
scenario was simply the revival of class politics and the
relegitimization of the state.

Focusing on the issue of class politics: There has been a sharp
restructuring of voting blocs along class lines under AMLO. From 2018
until 2021, the Mexican working-class vote was scattered across
different parties, as it had been for decades. Even when AMLO won the
presidency in 2018, his strongest constituency was the credentialed
classes, that is, middle-class professionals and intellectuals.

By the 2021 congressional elections, Morena’s class composition had
shifted sharply towards employees, especially workers in the informal
sector, and peasants. Meanwhile, Morena’s opposition, including the
disillusioned credentialed class, consolidated around the business
sector.

In a parallel shift, the parties that lost power during that period
were drawn into the fold of the business community. In other words,
the country witnessed the return of class politics under AMLO.

This was the consequence of policies favorable to the working class: a
historic increase in the minimum wage, the elimination of outsourcing,
union democratization, an increase in mandatory vacation days, cash
transfers for the poor, taxation of large companies, and more. Five
million people were lifted out of poverty, unemployment went down,
profits were distributed more evenly, and there was a lower Gini
coefficient.

Jacques Coste: The president was a true populist leader, in the sense
that he forged a strong bond with Mexico’s popular classes. Wage
hikes, union democracy, and other working-class advances were
important, too. We could add to the positive column what pollsters
call “a positive social mood.” Most Mexicans report feeling
optimistic about the direction the country is headed.

I don’t share their optimism, though. In fact, I feel that the
Morena government was a failure. For one, López Obrador never even
attempted to build back the welfare state; the state actually shrank
beyond even the worst years of neoliberalism under his administration.

The situation in public health, education, and public services is
worse now than before AMLO came to power. López Obrador compensated
with social programs, but those are rooted in a neoliberal vision of
services: giving cash transfers so individuals can seek market
solutions to their problems. That’s poverty management, not
welfarism.

Compensating for limited state capacity, the president handed his
political project over to the armed forces
[[link removed]].
As a consequence, the military’s political influence has grown over
the last six years, as has its economic power. The result: a
military-business complex that manages dozens of state companies in a
completely opaque manner.

One of Lopez Obrador’s greatest shortcomings was his security
policy
[[link removed]].
Human rights violations and violence are rampant throughout Mexico.
Under his administration, the country saw an annual homicide rate of
30,000, and disappearances of people skyrocketed. There are currently
more than 110,000 missing persons in Mexico.

This is not new to Mexico, but the president failed to address these
pressing issues in any basic way. Worse still, he turned his back on
the victims of human rights violations 
[[link removed]]when he reached
the presidency. He shut down dialogue with mothers searching for their
lost children, with feminist collectives
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organizations.

Finally, López Obrador’s environmental record was awful. The
government’s construction of the Mayan Train line has devastated
large swaths of the jungle
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the southeast of Mexico, particularly affecting the Indigenous peoples
living there. And the president’s commitment to oil refining in the
state-owned Pemex company goes against everything we know about the
need to move towards renewable energy.

Viridiana Rios: López Obrador’s term broke with the existing
neoliberal model. It may not have been the break we leftists wanted,
but if you look at the underlying elements of Mexican
neoliberalism—free trade combined with low-waged labor—there has
been a break with the past.

Before López Obrador took office, the Mexican Central Bank used to
say that increasing the minimum wage would trigger an inflationary
spiral. They were wrong: The minimum wage has doubled in Mexico
[[link removed]]—and
tripled on the border—and the result has been a historic decrease
in poverty
[[link removed]].

The reduction of income inequality
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the past six years has been equally historic. Through my research,
I’ve found that the reduction in inequality may even be comparable
to that of the so-called Mexican Miracle, that is, the period of major
growth in the 1960s that led to the development of the Mexican middle
class. What’s remarkable is today’s Mexican neo-miracle is taking
place amid low growth.

Of course, we leftists should remain critical
[[link removed]].
But this decrease in inequality and poverty did not come from cash
transfer programs
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as critics argue. It came from sweeping regulatory changes in the
labor market that empowered workers, streamlined judicial processes
for labor disputes, curtailed outsourcing practices
[[link removed]] used
to reduce worker’s benefits, and enabled the formation of democratic
unions. These unions are being organized in large plants like
the General Motors factory in Silao
[[link removed]] [Guanajuato],
where democratic labor practices are breaking with over a hundred
years of corporate unionism.

Now, the negative side. The president was given a mandate at the
ballot box—his 53 percent victory in 2018 was historic by the
standards of modern Mexican democracy. But he squandered that mandate
by embracing austerity. You cannot pursue a leftist agenda without
drawing on public money.

I agree that the militarization of the state is problematic from
a transparency perspective
[[link removed]].
But, again, the root of militarization is austerity itself. López
Obrador depends on the military because they do most jobs for cheaper.
Of course, people rarely mention all the European and American
infrastructure projects that rely on the military for similar reasons.

The real question is, why has the government decided to abandon a
progressive fiscal agenda
[[link removed]]?
It has to do with Mexico’s geopolitical position: if a country like
Mexico were to carry out a sufficiently aggressive tax reform, it
would cause a backlash in the capital market and lead to capital
flight.

Remember, Mexico is the United States’ most important trading
partner, so it regularly lives under the shadow of global capitalism.
Mexico was neoliberal because it was forced to be. Every time Mexico
has dared to question the neoliberal model, we were threatened with
devaluations and capital flight. One cannot understand the limitations
of Mexico’s left without first looking at the US.

NA: EDWIN SUGGESTS LÓPEZ OBRADOR INAUGURATED A POST-NEOLIBERAL
PHASE. JACQUES SAYS HIS GOVERNMENT IS THE CONTINUATION OF
NEOLIBERALISM. VIRI IS TALKING ABOUT A COMPLETE BREAK WITH
NEOLIBERALISM. WHICH IS IT?

EA: AMLO sees neoliberalism and corruption as related issues
[[link removed]].
For the president, neoliberalism did not mean the contraction of the
Mexican state; it meant that the state was hijacked to serve narrow
class interests. AMLO was very clear on this point: Neoliberalism,
like corruption, was a process by which private profits and political
connections became interdependent. Thus, AMLO’s post-neoliberal
regime fought to break up the connections between the state and the
private sector.

Note, I’m calling this approach post-neoliberal rather than
anti-neoliberal. Post-neoliberalism refers to a strategy but also a
general landscape: a public-policy approach which recognizes that
neoliberalism has transformed Mexican society in deep structural ways.

The president’s notion of “republican austerity
[[link removed]]” captures
this. Austerity is a tool that AMLO uses to target areas of the state
where the private sector funneled off public resources. It’s a way
to collect state revenue without tackling the huge political dilemma
of fiscal reform—a limitation that is a byproduct of neoliberalism.
Another example is the president’s commitment to honor existing free
trade agreements. AMLO has signed those agreements while insisting on
union democracy as a condition for their renewal.

I do see real attempts by AMLO to institutionalize the Mexican welfare
state, particularly in efforts to create new welfare agencies. For
example, the recently established Bank of Welfare attempts to provide
cash transfers to the poor without relying on the private banking
system. The government has successfully pushed for new social programs
to become part of the Constitution, which speaks to a desire to
enshrine newly conquered rights.

JC: I also see neoliberalism as the reorientation rather than
contraction of the state. But this is precisely what López Obrador
has done with his cash-transfer programs: reorient public services
towards market solutions.

López Obrador broke up some connections between political and
economic powers. But that is a far cry from saying that large
capitalist interests suffered under his presidency. Oxfam Mexico
published a report showing that the fortunes of the ultra-rich in
Mexico have grown significantly under López Obrador’s
administration. It was no coincidence that some of the wealthiest
Mexicans, like Carlos Slim, were very close to the government
[[link removed]].

The president has a decent reading of neoliberalism; I just don’t
think he is consistent with his own reading. As Mexican author Rafael
Lemus says, “The danger is not the continuity of neoliberalism but
its complete naturalization.” Remember, Obradorismo emerged as an
anti-neoliberal movement in 2005. Today, that legacy is being used to
naturalize policies that are essentially neoliberal.

Regarding the welfare state, the government’s attempts to replace
the structures inherited from the neoliberal era have only undermined
the existing welfare state. The previous health system was bad—I’m
not trying to defend it—but it brought health services to a group of
citizens who previously had no coverage. The government dismantled it
and tried to replace it with their universal system, but they failed
to plan the transition between health networks and millions were left
without access to basic health services
[[link removed]].

VR: I wouldn’t say that the president dismantled the welfare state.
The welfare state did not exist before AMLO. What Mexico had was
a public insurance system
[[link removed]] administered
in many instances by the private sector. Lopez Obrador tried to create
a universal healthcare system, which is an adequate goal. Yet he faced
severe lack of resources and competency for proper implementation.
That was his big mistake.

I’d like to take this moment to clarify what Lopez Obrador’s
austerity policy was really about. What Lopez Obrador called
“republican austerity” was not a policy to cut spending. Spending
in Mexico is currently at an all-time high
[[link removed]].
What the president called austerity was an attempt to shift spending
priorities towards two big areas: social programs and infrastructure
works. So, what some call the weakening of the state and identify with
neoliberalism is actually a reorientation of state activities.

Actually, the number of people working for the government has grown
under López Obrador
[[link removed]].
What decreased were high-ranking appointments. For example, many
deputy-general directorships, a top-earning ministerial appointment,
were eliminated. Meanwhile, positions for teachers
[[link removed]], doctors
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servants in the public sector have increased. It’s a restructuring
of the civil service pyramid.

When critics claim the state contracted, what they are really saying
is Mexico’s “golden bureaucracy” should be left untouched.
They’re not concerned with broadening the provision of services. Of
course, all of us here would have liked the government to spend much
more on public services––Mexico is still the country with
the lowest social spending in the OECD
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doesn’t mean we should join the right in attacking the government
for not providing services that also weren’t provided by previous
administrations.

NA: LET’S DISCUSS THE MILITARY ISSUE. THE MEXICAN ARMY HAS ASSUMED
A PROMINENT ROLE IN PUBLIC WORKS AND OTHER AREAS NORMALLY HANDLED BY
CIVILIAN AGENCIES. WHAT DOES THAT DEVELOPMENT MEAN FOR MEXICO, WHICH
HAS A COMPLICATED HISTORY OF MILITARIZED POLITICS?

JC: López Obrador relied on the army to carry out infrastructure
projects because of the state’s limitations. But this lack of state
capacity is self-inflicted: López Obrador slashed public budgets,
like previous neoliberal administrations before him.

But there lies a crucial difference, too: Previous neoliberal
governments made the problem of governance into a problem of the
citizenry, asking them to compensate for the windfall in public
spending. López Obrador has militarized the issue, since he sees the
army as a more disciplined, efficient task force than the civilian
population. The problem is that the army has become the entity
responsible for basic tasks of governance.

This militarization of the state has taken place during the ongoing
transition from the single-party rule of the PRI [Institutional
Revolutionary Party] to a liberal democracy. During that transition,
which began in 2000, there was no consensus about how to rein in the
armed forces. As a result, there are no constitutional controls to
oversee the military, and they have no legal obligation to act
transparently.

The president has brokered a deal
[[link removed]] that
allows the armed forces to enjoy special privileges, and, in return,
they guarantee domestic political stability. That deal allowed the
military to grow while the state contracted, setting a very dangerous
precedent: an empowered military and a weakened state.

A lot of this power is economic in nature. For example, airports,
customs agencies, construction companies, and the Mayan train line are
all under military supervision. We’re seeing reports of public
companies being used to fill the pockets of a small elite within the
armed forces. I believe this will be the most significant legacy of
López Obrador, one that Claudia Sheinbaum, his successor, will
inherit.

EA: Jacques is right to draw attention to potential issues arising
from this new relationship between the state and the military.
However, we need to be careful about using terms like
“militarization,” which sounds misleadingly like civilian rule is
subordinate to military rule.

When people criticize AMLO’s “militarization,” they’re often
taking issue with the army’s use in overseeing so-called
megaprojects. Essentially, these are attempts to shield large-scale
infrastructure projects from future privatization efforts. Again, I
see this as an issue of insufficient state capacity in the wake of
decades of neoliberalism. Implicitly, those who denounce the
militarization of public works are demanding we wait until civilian
institutions emerge and carry out pressing infrastructure needs.

There has been a rapprochement between the government and the
military, but it has not been without conflict either. Take the case
of Ayotzinapa
[[link removed]],
where the president publicly called out the military for obstructing
internal investigations. I would not describe the relationship between
the executive and military as “harmonious.”

Some developments have even been positive. One is that, ironically,
the military is under greater public scrutiny than it has been for a
long time. Traditionally, from the 1920s onward, the Mexican army’s
power was believed to have been greatly restrained. This new scrutiny
is part of a growing awareness that the military maintained more power
during the post-revolutionary period than was previously understood.

Lastly, many have expressed concerns about the militarization of
public safety, especially since the president placed the National
Guard [formerly the Federal Police] under the control of the secretary
of defense. I would respond that this is actually a relative
“civilianization” of public safety—which was already
“militarized” under the previous administrations—insofar as
National Guard members are now subject to trial in civil court for
human rights violations.

JC: There have been tensions between the president and the military.
But the military always comes out on top. The case of Ayotzinapa is a
perfect example: The military has actively undermined the
investigation of the disappearance of the 43 _normalista_ students.
They did the same with investigations into the Dirty War
[[link removed]], with the case
against General Cienfuegos
[[link removed]],
in court rulings
[[link removed]] to
make public works more transparent, and so on.

The military wins because the president has supported them at critical
junctures. As Edwin alluded to, this is the same military that
committed widespread abuses during the Dirty War and Felipe
Calderon’s drug wars
[[link removed]].

I’m concerned that the National Guard has been put under military
supervision. According to a study by the Citizen Security Program of
the Ibero-American University, 80 percent of the National Guardsmen
lack human rights certification. More than 80 percent of the National
Guard are under the command of the Mexican Secretariat of National
Defense, which means they are technically soldiers. That means these
domestic security forces can commit human rights violations without
any public oversight. This is especially serious since the National
Guard is also charged with “controlling” migration within
Mexico—a practice that involves all kinds of abuses
[[link removed]].

VR: I want to say a word about the term “megaprojects.” López
Obrador’s public works are routinely described as
“megaprojects,” when for a developed country in Europe or in the
United States, these would be normal and quite cheap.

Take the Mayan train. At the current exchange rate, the Mayan train
line would cover 970 miles and cost about $30 billion
[[link removed]].
To put that in perspective, the first section of the California
high-speed train is estimated to cost $35 billion and cover just 170
miles
[[link removed]].
In other words, the Mayan train is five times cheaper than the
California rail line.

The term “megaproject” seems to imply huge budgetary outlays, but
I have estimated that all of Lopez Obrador’s supposed mega-projects
together account for about 1.5 percent of his six-year budget.

The truth is that these “megaprojects”—which provide basic
infrastructural networks to historically neglected regions—are
ridiculously small. That we call them “mega” speaks to how much
neoliberalism has become common sense in Mexico. We need 10 times more
“megaprojects.”

There has been criticism due to the environmental impact of these
projects. But this is a much larger discussion about whether
developing nations like Mexico should be allowed to have
infrastructure like that of developed countries—that is, if Mexico
should be made to pay the cost of climate change. If the answer is
yes, then developed countries need to not only pay Mexico to protect
the environment but also pay reparations for generations of Mexican
citizens who are being asked to live at lower developmental levels.

To your question about the military, in an ideal world, the state
would be run by a civilian bureaucracy. But again, I believe the
underlying issue is _what_ is driving López Obrador to depend on
the military: They are fast and cheap. It comes down to the difficulty
of increasing taxes and building state capacity in a country that
depends economically on the free market and on the United States,
where taxes are low.

There is a separate issue, which is the hijacking of public works for
outlandish private-sector profits. If we compare the cost of the
airport built by the army with that which was going to be built by
private initiative, the latter would have cost much more than the
former. In other words, we need to talk about private involvement in
public works and how to control the abuse of state resources.

NA: TAX REFORM SOUNDS LIKE AN IMPORTANT CHALLENGE FOR FUTURE
ADMINISTRATIONS. BUT, TO EDWIN’S POINT ABOUT CLASS POLITICS, THE
NEXT GOVERNMENT MIGHT NEED A STRONG MAJORITARIAN MOVEMENT TO HELP IT
PURSUE A CONTROVERSIAL REDISTRIBUTIVE AGENDA.

EA: We should continue to pressure for progressive tax reform while
recognizing the obstacles. One is that we are in an extended period of
low growth, which imposes objective limits on the taxable
base—although there is still some margin to increase taxes on the
upper class. In lieu of an immediate proposal for tax reform, the
government has pursued a policy of increasing tax collection from
large companies and closing payment loopholes, with some success.

Second, the general population sees the state as corrupt. So,
ironically, before there can be a call for tax reform, there needs to
be another round of republican austerity to legitimize the state in
the eyes of the people.

Were Claudia Sheinbaum to win the presidency, it would not be at all
surprising if she proposed a major overhaul of the tax system.
There’s nothing in AMLO’s or Sheinbaum’s agenda that is
ideologically against raising taxes, but that would have to come from
a shift in the overall balance of forces.

VR: In Mexico, there is an implicit taxation alliance between the
upper and the lower classes—the two poles where most of the tax
evasion is concentrated. That avoidance places all the tax burden on
the middle class. In that scenario, there is no social base demanding
more taxes, because the middle class is too small, and the majority of
the population is paying a relatively low tax rate.

Moreover, I conducted a national survey asking if the Mexican
government overspends. Sixty-three percent responded yes. That means,
culturally speaking, Mexico faces two challenges: On the one hand,
there is a tax-evasion alliance between the economic elite and the
lowest socioeconomic bracket. On the other hand, there is an idea that
the government already spends too much.

This poses a dilemma for an extremely unequal country like Mexico
[[link removed]].
In addition to legitimizing the state and creating awareness of the
value of public services, as Edwin said, we have to vocally emphasize
that fiscal reforms will only affect the top 10 percent of the
population. This narrative has been missing from Mexican leftist
circles and has hindered the pursuit of fiscal reform.

JC: This is one of the great cultural triumphs of neoliberalism in
Mexico: to make it common sense that everything related to the state
is inherently corrupt. But, on this point, my criticism of López
Obrador is that, instead of engaging in a campaign to educate the
public about the need for fiscal reform, he has done the opposite.
López Obrador has pandered to the most pedestrian notions of
corruption, insisting that all politicians—except himself—steal
from taxpayers.

In doing so, López Obrador legitimizes himself at the expense of the
state. I don’t see how that could be the beginning of a movement for
fiscal reform. We shouldn’t ignore that López Obrador is supported
by big business, and those interests have influenced the
government’s choice—there’s no other word for it—to not fight
for comprehensive tax reform.

NA: EARLIER, WE ALLUDED TO MEXICO’S DEMOCRATIC TRANSITION, AND
WE’VE CIRCLED AROUND THE QUESTION OF LÓPEZ OBRADOR’S OWN
DEMOCRATIC RECORD. WHAT IS THE STATE OF MEXICAN DEMOCRACY?

EA: The whole notion of the democratic transition is undergoing a
major revision. In the late 1990s, the neoliberal bloc in Mexico waved
the flag of democracy since the anti-statism of challenger parties
like Vicente Fox’s National Action Party also worked as a critique
of the lack of democracy under the single-party system. They could
sell neoliberalism and the free market as synonyms for democracy.

In other words, what was called the democratic transition was an
attempt to advance a neoliberal class project. The fact that those
forces have been politically marginalized under AMLO suggests a major
change in political regimes. Whether that change amounts to a Fourth
Transformation is something that can only be seen in retrospect.

I will say this: The other transformations to which the president
alludes—independence, liberal reform, and the revolution—all
coincided with economic paradigm shifts on a global scale, whether it
was the transition to capitalism in the case of Mexican independence
or the Keynesian welfare state after the Mexican Revolution. The
current transformation is happening against the backdrop of
the worldwide decline of neoliberalism
[[link removed]]—a
decline that is not a sharp break but certainly suggests that the
neoliberal consensus is falling apart.

JC: López Obrador came to power with a democratic agenda: He ran
against the procedural, institutional vision of democracy; he opposed
the existing system of presidentialism, arguing that the executive had
to be weakened to create a more democratic state; he called for the
revival of the mass party and to decentralize the state to reach
non-urban parts of the country. However, that agenda was never
translated into reality, and nothing from the last six years suggests
a more democratic system.

Democracy is about much more than fair elections and an independent
judiciary, but clean elections and autonomous courts—two things the
president has jeopardized—are essential components of democracy. If
the reforms proposed by AMLO
[[link removed]] and
supported by Sheinbaum to weaken the independent electoral body and
the Supreme Court are implemented, then the Mexican electoral system
would no longer provide fair conditions for all competitors, and the
courts would simply serve to legitimize the executive.

VR: López Obrador and Morena’s intention to centralize power came
from a desire to expedite the implementation of their agenda, which
was democratically elected by a historic number of Mexican voters. For
some, this centralization of power raises red flags. In traditional
liberal democratic theory, the checks-and-balances system of
government is there to limit majority rule.

The problem is that in Mexico the system of checks-and-balances has
often served to limit majorities by protecting one minority group:
economic elites. This is hard to explain to those who defend an
abstract notion of liberal democracy, but in Mexico, there are some
democratic counterweights that have been captured by the oligarchy.

That is why the Central Bank was against raising the minimum wage, the
Supreme Court has limited labor rights and allowed for legalized tax
evasion, the energy regulator has given lavish subsidies to the
private industry, and the telecommunications regulator has been
incapable of properly regulating the market that it was supposed to
regulate. We need to discuss the kind of checks and balances that can
strengthen democracy, rather than uncritically defending all of them.

Mexican elites have grown reliant on antidemocratic judiciary
strategies to interfere with the affairs of the state. Again, despite
what traditional democratic theory says about a system of checks and
balances, the reality is that, in a highly unequal country like
Mexico, the Supreme Court of Justice responds to the interests of the
economic elite. This has become a problem for the state itself, as
many of the reforms that López Obrador has tried to implement have
been thrown out by decree of the Supreme Court.

NA: WHAT ARE YOUR EXPECTATIONS FOR THE LIKELY PRESIDENCY OF CLAUDIA
SHEINBAUM?

EA: Claudia Sheinbaum’s political style speaks more organically to
AMLO’s erstwhile intellectual and progressive supporters. Would
courting that sector mean alienating López Obrador’s working-class
base? Not necessarily. The continued politicization of the population
along class lines will depend on the continuation of material
advances; fortunately, the country’s economic prospects are
optimistic and Sheinbaum’s term might even have more room to
continue the post-neoliberal turn.

JC: I don’t feel hopeful. I see signs of continuity in the areas
where López Obrador’s track record was poorest. And I don’t see
any evidence that Sheinbaum would alter course, because Sheinbaum’s
entire political career is indebted to López Obrador.

One thing worth watching: Morena has been characterized by the strong
personalist rule of López Obrador. What is going to happen with
Morena after López Obrador? This is a key question that will
determine the future of the Mexican party system. Here, I see two
possible future developments: the institutionalization of Morena, a
bit along the lines of what happened to the PRI over the last century,
or a constant internal power struggle leading to party
dysfunctionality.

VR: To be successful, Sheinbaum will have to deliver at least as much
as Obrador did. Yet there is less room to rebalance budgets for social
programs, and it will be hard to keep raising wages at the same rate.
Sheinbaum has shown a special interest in exploring other areas, for
example, providing care services for children and seniors. She has
also placed emphasis on infrastructure—even more than AMLO.

It’s going to be a shock for a country like Mexico to have female
leadership. It’s going to be a challenge for Sheinbaum, because
criticism against female leaders tends to be harsher than for men. But
it’s going to be a very interesting period for the young Mexican
democracy.

_NICOLAS ALLEN is a commissioning editor at Jacobin and a PhD student
in Latin American history at Stony Brook University (SUNY)._

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* AMLO
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* Mexico
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* elections
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* Politics
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* History
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* democracy
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