The election of Donald Trump as president of the United States and his aggressive behavior toward Mexico have greatly boosted the presidential campaign of Andrés Manuel López Obrador. In February, López Obrador’s party, the Movimiento de Regeneración Nacional (Morena), led in surveys with almost 26 percent. His supporters hail him as someone who will fight for the poor and disenfranchised, attack corruption, strengthen the economy, and end the violence that has plagued Mexico for the past decade. His opponents deride him as a populist who will “punish enterprise, weaken institutions and roll back reforms.” Some go further and call him “a Hugo Chávez wannabe.”
To understand López Obrador and his current popularity, it is necessary to understand his roots. López Obrador began his political career with the Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI), serving as its president in his home state of Tabasco. He resigned from this post to join Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas’ dissenting wing, which sought to shift the PRI to a leftist, populist platform. This wing ultimately broke away from the PRI completely to form the Partido de la Revolución Democrática (PRD). López Obrador subsequently served as president of the PRD and mayor of Mexico City, and ran for president of Mexico twice. After losing the presidential elections in 2012, he withdrew from the PRD to found Morena. Throughout his career, López Obrador’s work for indigenous communities and other socially and economically vulnerable groups has earned him a reputation as someone who fights for the people, instead of taking advantage of them to line his own pockets.
With this background, López Obrador is able to appeal to a large segment of Mexico’s population—the poor and disenfranchised. This is evidenced by the fact that Morena leads in polls conducted in Mexico’s central and southeastern regions, where much of Mexico’s poor and indigenous populations live. López Obrador also appeals to many who are frustrated with the current PRI administration under President Enrique Peña Nieto. Peña Nieto’s administration began with many promises for reform and growth, but it has generally failed to live up to expectations. His tenure has also been rocked by scandals such as the disappearance and murder of 43 students in the rural town of Ayotzinapa in 2014, and the end of gasoline subsidies that caused gas prices to skyrocket earlier this year. All this has caused his approval ratings to sink to 12 percent as of late January.
Then there is Donald Trump. If Mexicans are angered by President Trump’s accusations and threats against Mexico, they are even more maddened by their president’s apparent submissiveness. Many view Peña Nieto as slow to respond to Trump’s attacks, such as when he claimed that Mexico was sending drugs and rapists to the United States at the start of his presidential campaign. Later, in the midst of the U.S. elections, Peña Nieto’s administration was also heavily criticized for inviting Trump to Mexico for meetings.
All of this gives López Obrador the opportunity to bill himself as Mexico’s savior. Morena’s party platform states that its goal is to “change the current regime of corruption, anti-democracy, injustice, and illegality” and to “establish in Mexico a true democracy, a government by the people and for the people.” López Obrador is also an opponent of NAFTA and neoliberalism in general, pointing out that the treaty has not been the “panacea” or the “salvation” that Mexico thought it would be.
As for relations with the United States, López Obrador has said that “everything depends on strengthening Mexico, so we can confront aggression from abroad with strength.” He portrays himself as someone who will fight back against Trump’s accusations and threats, unlike his opponents who have promoted closer ties with the United States. In mid-March, he traveled to New York to speak before the U.N. to “protest the persecution of our countrymen by the United States government.” In the United States, there is also a realization that Trump’s inflammatory remarks about Mexico and immigrants risk “provoking a Mexican populist backlash…that could adversely affect U.S. prosperity and security for years to come.”
At first glance, López Obrador may appear very likely to win. However, experts such as Luis Rubio say that it is still too early to make concrete predictions; for example, a survey published in early April by El Financiero announced that Margarita Zavala, the candidate of the Partido Acción Nacional, had taken the lead with 32 percent.
Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s candidacy gives his supporters much to rally around. As the only presidential candidate of his party, he has an early advantage over his opponents, who must still compete in their parties’ primaries. With the election still over a year away, however, there is still plenty of opportunity for the circumstances of Mexico’s presidential race to change.
Raul DeLira (’18) is an intern at the Baker Institute Mexico Center and a junior at Rice University majoring in economics and Latin American studies.