AMLO: The Greatest Threat to Mexican Democracy

Since 2018, Mexico’s economic and social progress has been hampered by the authoritarian rule that Andrés Manuel López Obrador and his party, MORENA, have brought-about. Hereinafter as AMLO, Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s landslide political victory is arguably Mexico’s largest blunder, eradicating any hope of economic prosperity following the corrupt rule of Enrique Peña Nieto (2012–2018). With Maduro-like socialist policies, AMLO has actively engaged in an effort to abolish Mexican democracy and establish an authoritarian socialist utopia in Mexico. AMLO has effectively enacted policies that enable his regime to expand their influence and control over the Mexican people, infringing on their liberty and rights. It is of utmost importance that foreign leaders and superpowers condemn AMLO’s oppressive regime, for the good of the Mexican people and their future destiny.

MORENA and AMLO today pose the greatest threat to Mexican democracy; AMLO is Mexico’s false messiah. AMLO’s sole objective is to turn back the clock, and return Mexico to the 1970s, an era where capitalism and free markets were not embraced, an era where Mexico was a one-party nation with an all-powerful president, and a compliant partisan judicial system. AMLO’s populist and nationalist solidarity is depicted in his stance towards Pemex, Mexico’s national oil company. AMLO has on multiple occasions spoken out with nostalgia, on how decades ago, the state produced all of Mexico’s electricity. In March 2021, AMLO continued with his nationalist ambitions when sending a bill to congress that would reform Mexico’s hydrocarbon law to give Pemex greater control over the domestic fuel market. AMLO intends to re-nationalize Mexico’s entire energy sector, a hope that has worried political analysts across the globe. Since 1938, never has Mexico nationalized its energy sector in its entirety, and it did not serve Mexico’s economic interests well. AMLO has taken strides to centralize government control over energy, mainly through a number of constitutional reforms. Such reforms aspire to banish private investment in electricity, and intend to reserve future control of lithium extraction solely to the Mexican government. They will annihilate the now-existing independently regulated, market-based system in the energy sector. AMLO will do everything in his power to ensure that Pemex leads Mexico’s oil, and that the state controls it. Further, in September 2021, Mexican National Guard troops sealed the gates at Monterra Energy, a U.S. based company owned by KKR, an investment firm. The terminal is a major part of a half a billion dollar investments in Mexican diesel. Like Monterra, other significant oil companies that rival Pemex have faced belligerent regulatory actions, such companies as Sempra and Bulkmatic. Mexican tax regulators have forbidden 82 international companies from exporting Mexican oil over “fiscal violations.” AMLO’s moves, economically, will freeze international investment in Mexico, a nation already living through its worst depression since the 1930s. Foreign investment will remain stagnant, hence limiting the progress of Mexico socio-economically in the 21st-century. AMLO, simply put, is exploiting Mexican democracy suppressing private institutions and markets.

Months into his presidency, in addition, AMLO decided to cancel the building of a 13 Billion USD new airport for Mexico City. AMLO set the project’s future out for a dubious local vote, in which the majority were in favor of canceling it. Critics, nevertheless, believe the vote to have been tampered with. AMLO’s decisions was solely a political one — to demonstrate to capitalists that he, rather than business contractors and “the market” will be in charge of Mexico. AMLO, as a show of his power, disregarded economic implications for political ones. He did not cancel the airport with the greater good of Mexicans in mind, but with the thought of showing power to his political opponents, and to demonstrate that there is a new sheriff in town, a vastly authoritative political move by the president.

AMLO, who has divided Mexico into two classes — the “people” being the true core and force of Mexico, and the elite conservatives being unscrupulous — has also severely taken measures to silence the press who do not show staunch support of his radical movement. President López Obrador claimed that “all good reporters in history have always betted in favor of political transformations (…) either you are in favor of the transformation or against.” In 2019, Mexico was the second nation in which most reporters were assassinated, only trailing behind the anarchical rule in Syria. Such killing has been incited by AMLO’s rhetorical, egregious comments. Furthermore, from January 2021 — November 2021, at least 9 reporters perished as a result of assasination in Mexico. AMLO has repeatedly demonstrated that he does not abide by the values of democracy, nor by the fundamental pillar that government can be questioned and challenged.

More worrisome, moreover, is AMLO’s direct assault against the electoral tribunal and federal judiciary. AMLO, in 2021, claimed that the Mexican Federal Judiciary (TEPJF) and the Mexican Electoral Tribunal (INE) “were created to prevent democracy;” a farcical comment for the current leader of Mexico to make when he is actively seeking to dispose of the nation’s democratic institutions. AMLO himself slashed the budget that the INE receives yearly, and has hinted at an utter disappearance of autonomous bodies of government such as the INE, which he claims are presently “not truly autonomous.” In the judiciary branch, AMLO and the executive are slowly but surely colonizing it. Through AMLO’s term, he has unconstitutionally extended the term of the Chief Justice, Arturo Zaldívar, and appointed a stalwart ally to the bench as well. AMLO has moved to stack the courts and take hold of court officials’ evaluations and nominations. What Mexico is witnessing is a power grab by Andrés Manuel and his party — not seeking to replace brittle and fragile democratic institutions with new ones, but instead, to take over them. Mexico has entered a new political threshold, alas, it is one of radical left-wing authoritarianism.

With his power grab of the judicial and independent bodies of government has also come AMLO’s use of the Mexican military as a means to achieve his desired political outcomes. AMLO has given the Mexican military newfound duties and powers. For instance, in the construction and development of the Maya Train, a 1,500 km railway due to run through the Yucatán Peninsula, AMLO has stated that the Mexican military will remain with all the profits and will handle construction of a number of sections of the railway itself. Under AMLO, the military has found to have control over international airports, migration, pipelines, ports, and hospitals, management previously under the influence of government bodies. The use of military strength for political motives by AMLO is a clear representation of his authoritative ways. In May 2020, AMLO issued an executive decree targeted at expanding the role of the armed forces in public and civilian security — the decree giving the armed forces authority to detain suspects and secure crime scenes. The Mexican Armed Forces are not Mexico’s glorious servants as AMLO portrays them, a study by Anímal Político, a national Mexican news outlet, illustrated how 90% of deployed service members had not passed the evaluation to serve in Unlike other ministries, the Mexican Ministry of Defense (which covers the army/air force) received $5.6 billion USD in 2021, a 40% increase from its 2018 financing. Mr. López Obrador has, through his term, utilized and empowered the military as a means of accomplishing his craved political end-results.

As a proud born Mexican citizen, who lived in the nation for 14 years, I fear for the future of the great nation that brought me up, I fear for my family back home, I fear for my loved ones, I fear for the less-privileged, and I fear for the democratic establishment in Mexico, which day by day torns under the authoritarian rule of Andrés Manuel López Obrador. Señor Presidente, I can assure you one thing, and that is that the Mexican people will not surrender, and we will not allow for you and your extremist party to take over nuestro México.

Mr. Lopez Obrador, continue with your dictator-like political actions, please do so — but rest assured, nor will I or the Mexican people be silenced, nor will I or the Mexican people throw the white towel, nor will I or the Mexican people be stripped of our freedoms; and that is, Mr. President, because we are Mexicans, and, yes, we will fight.