Mexican Elections:  The Politics of Hope in Mexico:
Will AMLO Go The Way of Obama?  Let's Hope Not

As expected, Andrés Manuel Lopez Obrador (AMLO) won the Presidency yesterday in a massive landslide, with a probable final showing of 53% of the total, gaining more than twice the votes of his two nearest rivals put together.  More, his political party, MORENA, is poised to have the most number of seats in both chambers of parliament, giving him exceptional powers to enact legislation, not just to manage the executive branch.

The massive vote for MORENA can be interpreted only as a strong repudiation of the current corrupt two-party system governing Mexico since 2000.  Both traditional parties, the PRI and the PAN, were mired in corruption during the entire period of two-party rule since 2000.  Both traditional parties submitted meekly to demands by the US to allow US military intervention in the drug war in Mexico.  Both parties remained silent in the face of increasingly hostile official treatment of Mexican migrants attracted to the US by readily available jobs encouraged by corporate America in roofing, domestic service, meat packing, and other economic sectors.  Both parties were mute when U.S. extremists encouraged anti-Mexican sentiment and whose voices gained prominence  in the White House.

What did Mexico gain from this subservience?  Certainly not a successful campaign against Mexican drug trafficking.  Drug-related homicide rates have made Mexico one of the most dangerous countries in the world and in 2010, just across the river from a massive high tech anti-drug complex housed in Ft. Bliss, Juarez became the most dangerous city in the world.  Nor was the effort effective.  The flow of drugs into the US has never subsided.  And in return for official silence as migration controls became increasingly draconian during the Clinton-Bush-Obama periods, Mexicans observed with consternation as Mexico-bashing became one of the major signatures of the candidate who was ultimately declared the winner.  Mexican President Peña Nieto stood frozen, humiliated before the world, unable to speak, as Trump lectured him, in Mexico City, about having to pay for The Wall.  More recently, Mexicans have seen their government leaders wring their hands impotently as children were torn from their parents' arms for the sin of seeking asylum in the US. If my experience is any indication, he rage of Mexicans in Juarez is not so much against US policy--although that is certainly there--as it is against the complicity of the Mexican government with these humiliations.

Was there a positive side?  A lot of dollars have been flowing into Mexico as a result of NAFTA and the War on Drugs.  Economically, Mexico has grown.  The billionaire class in Mexico, politically well connected, prospered immensely as they acquired US know-how, financing, trade partners, and franchises.  And, yes, there was some trickle down, but much of this was slurped up by the greedy political class as corruption reached unprecedented levels in recent years. Cesar Duarte, for example, governor of Chihuahua from 2010-2016, was flagrant about dipping into official funds during his first three years in office, as was President Peña Nieto, who became a super-rich overnight at the expense of everyone else.  The positive inflow of dollars carried other costs as well.  Thousands of Central Mexican corn growers, largely small peasant farmers, were wiped out by the dumping of cheaper US corn into Mexico, a Mexican version of rust belt dis-employment. Franchise fees in the McDonalds hamburgerization of Mexico shifted some profits to the US., and small business owners have had to compete with increasingly monopolistic practices that have driven them out of business.

AMLO promises to make headway against corruption.  It will be a tough struggle, and the outcome does not depend on the amount of money invested against corruption.  It depends on the support of the population against entrenched interests.  He also promises a more dignified foreign policy, a brake on the privatization of the oil-rich energy sector, doubling the pitifully small pension for senior citizens, free education for all and, in general, a return to the New Deal-style social policies of the traditional PRI, which ruled Mexico from the 1930s until the early 1980s, but which switched to US-style neo-liberalism after that.  As in the US, Mexican government policy has been outspokenly neo-liberal in nature, with massive privatization, redistribution of income and wealth to the rich, and appalling levels of corruption.  The public apparently has had enough of being told by both parties that these changes were the natural consequences of the new globalized economic order.

A caveat:  Obama came to the presidency in 2008 promising similar types of reform, and he was rewarded for this with a strong mandate by the public at a moment of deep crisis as the US economy, propelled by corruption, was on the verge of collapse.  He had a virtual blank check from the US public.  But within the first 100 days he had caved in to Wall Street, increased funding for the no-accountability wars abroad, and in general signaled a continuation of a status quo people had voted against.  The disillusionment was so profound it paved the way for the election of Donald Trump eight years later, as a significant portion of his voters abandoned their allegiance to the Democratic Party.  Only demographic changes, such as the increase in Hispanic and younger voters, and the appearance of well-centered leaders such as Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, have been able to save the Democrats from total defeat.  Should the same thing happen to AMLO, Mexico might well elect its own version of Donald Trump six years from now.