From our polling, we’ve found them very supportive of free trade, of NAFTA, of foreign investment, of the domestic private sector. “And Mexicans have a pretty pragmatic outlook on various issues. “AMLO’s support wasn’t stratified-it spanned all socioeconomic classes, unlike that of Lula, Chávez, Ortega,” he notes. Mark says that even if AMLO did aspire to such a rupture-which his tenure as Mexico City mayor suggests he doesn’t-he wouldn’t find in Mexican society any of the conditions necessary for it. Mark and Carlos both seemed sure of one thing: we may not know exactly how AMLO is going to govern, but we have a pretty good idea of how he’s not going to govern.ĭuring the campaign, there was no shortage of editorials and thinkpieces in Mexican and US media warning that, if elected, AMLO would bring a Chávez-like rupture to Mexico, one that would plunge the country into Bolivarian chaos. To discuss, Peter and Muni brought in Carlos Bravo Regidor, one of Mexico’s top political analysts and director of the journalism program at Meixco’s prestigious CIDE institute, and Mark Feierstein, former Senior Director for Western Hemisphere Affairs on President Obama’s National Security Council and a senior advisor with the Albright Stonebridge Group.
Will AMLO be a Mexican Trump? A Mexican Chávez? A leftist revolutionary? A pragmatic centrist? A disruptor? Or an establishment continuation? Andrés Manuel López Obrador, by now a household name even outside the country, will take office in a few months with a stronger mandate than any of his predecessors.Īltamar’s 23rd episode takes a close look the man afforded every epithet under the sun by domestic and foreign observers. Mexicans have spoken, and they’ve spoken loudly.