Left turn in Mexican politics is a welcome change in the Latin American landscape

Andre Manuel Lopez Obrador, (AMLO to friends and followers), has won a landslide popular mandate to become the President of Mexico for the next six years. What makes it noteworthy is that at a time when the electoral shift to the right is increasingly evident in Europe, the US and even in Latin America, Obrador chose to run a campaign on an uninhibited leftist platform and succeeded in capturing popular imagination.

How could Obrador succeed when a formidable array of national and international forces -- the US, the big business, the big media – were ranged against him?

The answer lies in a complex of factors. But the most obvious is that in a country notorious for large-scale corruption, Obrador ran as Mr Clean. Citizens of Mexico voted overwhelmingly for him as they want the corrupt system to end.

But then Obrador has been in the national political scene of Mexico for more than a decade and he has been raising his voice against corruption for a long time; in fact, this is his third stab at the presidency. Why did the electorate reject him last two times (2006 and 2012) and why have they swung to his side in a big way now, in 2018?

Well, to be fair, Obrador lost the presidential election in 2006 by a whisker, by just 0.56%. There were reports of large-scale irregularities in counting; million-strong supporters of AMLO had then laid siege to the downtown Mexican city for days demanding the recount of the votes. But with the active support of the Bush administration of the USA, the Mexican authorities disregarded the demand. AMLO had no option but go on a campaign trail for the next election. In 2012, Obrador was, of course, left behind by almost six per cent votes.

Why this time people gave him such a sweeping victory that only after a fraction of votes counted, two closest contenders conceded defeat?

It is because the Mexicans have, of late, not only been fed up of corruption of political elite but also of large-scale poverty and spiralling violence that bedevil the country. The available statistics tell the story: the Transparency International has put Mexico in the bottom quarter of the most corrupt nations of the world. More starkly, the current president Pena Nieto’s wife purchased a multi-million dollar mansion from a government contractor and that is on the lips of every Mexican citizen.

The international estimates tell us that the national poverty rate in Mexico was higher in 2017 than it was in 1994; a corollary is that inflation-adjusted wages have barely risen in the last two decades.

This has a lot to do with the stilted economy: Mexico stands 15th of the 20 Latin American countries in per capita GDP growth. An estimate tells us that almost five million farmers lost their livelihood, as subsidized corn from the United States flooded the country. This led to the large-scale illegal emigration into USA (they serve as domestic help for rich and powerful there) which President Trump is determined to stop.

Large-scale violence is another anathema for the Mexicans. The international reports tell us that since 2000 more than hundred journalists who wrote critical pieces about the government in small and local media have been murdered in broad daylight and many more have disappeared without trace. Same is the story of hundreds of activists who have been critical of the performance of the government. Although an impression has been created that the drug lords are primarily responsible for the violence against the journalists and activists, the New York Times reported, quoting government data, “that public servants like mayors and police officers have threatened journalists more often than drug cartels, petty criminals or anyone else.”

How has the government tried to tackle the problem of loss of credibility on account of the climate of fear and privation? According to a report of the New York Times, in the last five years, the Mexican government has paid nearly 2 billion dollars of public fund to large media houses as gratification money in the form of advertisements: the quid pro quo is positive and promotional coverage of the government’s achievements. The big media houses have fully obliged.

Obrador has promised to break the nexus of what he calls this “mafia of power” – the nexus between the political, business and media elite of the country. The international business elite has reasons to be happy with the political elite of the country as, at the behest of the multilateral agencies, the government has undertaken extensive neoliberal reforms and opened up the Mexican economy, especially its highly profitable oil industry, to big players of the USA and other countries.

In the last five years, since the privatization of the energy sector was enacted by the Mexican government, the prices of the petroleum products have been galloping. Obrador has promised that there would be no increase in the gasoline prices for at least three years. He has promised to review, and if necessary reverse, the decisions to privatise such industries which, after privatization, have become a bigger burden for the ordinary taxpayer.

No wonder, the business elite, both domestic and international, were up in arms. Some of them issued dire warnings to their employees, cautioning them not to be misled by a populist like Obrador. Many have likened him to the late Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, who won a popular mandate on a similar promise and went on to create an authoritarian state with a command economy.

This fear of the consequences of a leftist turn of the Mexican politics – which has, since 1980s become of a bastion of right-wing experiments – had prevented the middle class from joining hands with Obrador (the poor largely supported him while the rich invariably bayed for his blood) in the last two elections.

But many of the middle class Mexicans decided to take the risk this time. They seemed to have told the pollsters: “Nothing under Obrador could be worse than what prevails today.”

This alliance of the poor and the middle class has ensured a leftist turn in Mexico’s politics. This is a welcome change at a time when the pink tide of left wing leadership in central and south America has virtually run its course.