Andrés Manuel López Obrador:

Between Promises and the Burden of

Reality

Arturo Sánchez-Gutiérrez
All Mexican presidents face important challenges to policy negotiation during their first
year in office. Even under the one-party stronghold and the long period of presidential-
ism in Mexico, the new leader always launched his administration looking to make agree-
ments with groups within his party that were not seeing any real benefits, so that he could
govern for 6 years unchallenged. When the opposition party won in 2000, Vicente Fox
faced a new reality during his first year; his party did not control either of the chambers of
Congress, and there were doubts about the ability of the National Action Party (PAN), the
winner of the presidency, to counter the strength of the Institutional Revolutionary Party,
which still held on to power in most of the nation.
In 2006, Felipe Calderón, also from the PAN, was obliged to find a balance
with the left-leaning opposition, the Democratic Revolutionary Party (PRD), led
by Andrés Manual López Obrador, who had lost the presidency by only 0.56%
of the vote. During Calderón’s first year in office, at least an election reform was
negotiated that limited severely media participation in elections campaigns
and modified the structure of the former Federal Elections Institute. In general,
negotiations held at the beginning of the six-year administration have allowed
Mexican presidents to find the necessary political balance, to make their clear
plans for the government, to incorporate different political groups into their
teams, and, most important, to bring together forces to negotiate a budget.
Peña Nieto’s first year in office offered the most tangible proof that it was pos-
sible to govern successfully from the first if emphasis was placed on negotiating
from a starting point of the administration’s original plans. From December 2012
until the beginning of 2014, despite the difficulties, Peña Nieto was able to get
the political actors to agree upon a series of reforms that benefitted everyone
in each area. The strategy was to move the policy negotiation to the Congress
and get them to commit from day one of his administration to the so-called
Pact for Mexico. Under this pact, significant education reform was achieved,
the legal framework governing telecommunications in the nation was reformu-
lated, and another electoral reform was negotiated, one that made it possible to
expand democracy to the electoral processes in the states. Finally, the PRI and
PAN together agreed upon an energy reform package that opened the doors to
private-capital participation in oil exploration and extraction. These successes
were possible, thanks to the necessary negotiation between the executive and

Latin American Policy—Volume 10, Number 2—Pages 286–291

© 2019 Policy Studies Organization. Published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
 Andrés Manuel López Obrador 287

legislative powers and to the existence of divided governments, where the

president did not have a majority in Congress that supported his initiatives
unconditionally.
In Peña Nieto’s case, the errors came a while later. After the Pact for Mexico,
corruption in politics was more rampant and visible than ever before. The dis-
appearance and murder of 43 teaching students in Ayotzinapa placed the gov-
ernment in a labyrinth with no way out. Meanwhile, the opposition parties,
together with the PRI, underwent an accelerated process of internal divisions
that led them to question even the legitimacy of their own leaders. During this
time, over a period of 2 years, Andrés Manuel López Obrador left the PRD; built
the Morena Party, based on the National Regeneration Movement that he led;
ran up and down the country several times; and participated successfully in the
2015 midterm elections. Several weeks before the presidential election, it became
clear that Morena had serious possibilities of winning. There was no leadership
strong enough to face off with the then-third-time candidate, and even though
the polls showed that he would be the clear winner, few believed that he would
get more than 53% of the vote.

Rise to Power
More than the number of votes, López Obrador’s success lay in the construc-
tion of a political discourse that citizens could easily understand and in the close-
ness to the people that he managed to create in a short amount of time, something
no president had managed to do, since the 1970s. López Obrador’s message can
be summarized as a constant smear campaign of absolutely everything the gov-
ernments of the last 35 years had done. He called that period as Mexico’s “neo-
liberal age,” when a “mafia” took power, forgot about the people, built a system
of privileges for an elite governing class, and, above all, corrupted the nation by
allowing the political class to plunder, year after year, the state coffers to benefit a
select few. Meanwhile, the people were in worse conditions every year, the prices
of basic goods such as gasoline increased, the nation’s riches were handed over
to representatives of foreign capital, election fraud was committed to keep him
out of power, and the people were suppressed through the misuse of the armed
forces.
Evidently, his discourse was full of falsehoods, imprecisions, and sophisms
that the people were unable to pick up on, voting for him in 2018. It was really
the fact that people were fed up, that there was a huge increase in social inequal-
ity, and there was rampant corruption that led the way to a new leader of the
masses. Besides winning the presidency, Morena and its allies took enough seats
in both chambers of Congress that the new president was able to enact and mod-
ify laws, without having to negotiate or given all to his political rivals. López
Obrador knew that it was the case on the night of July 1, 2018, when the election
officials announced the probable results.
All things considered, the new president’s first year is not proving to be as dif-
ficult as one might expect. There are several points at play against the president
for one simple reason; the new government does not appear willing to negotiate
on practically any of the positions that López Obrador put forth in his campaign.
His discourse polarized society even more, by calling anyone who criticized his
policies as “fifis,” corrupt, or privileged. A new presidential style was imposed
288 Latin American Policy

where López Obrador made use of the popular support that had had fought for
so hard in the elections, a support that would allow him to maintain his cam-
paign discourse, continue generating great expectations among his supporters,
and build his idea that his administration would be a Fourth Transformation for
Mexico, after Independence, the Juárez Reform, and the Mexican Revolution.
His rise to power was seasoned by Peña Nieto’s authentic claudication during
the final 5 months of his administration. The Peña government practically dis-
appeared during the so-called transition months, and López Obrador actu-
ally started to make significant decisions before he was sworn in. From July to
November 2018, it seemed that the president-elect was still campaigning; he con-
tinued to travel up and down the nation and started to take decisions to meet
the expectations he had created. Those months were an immediate throwback to
the PRI presidentialism of the past and to a time of control over practically all
decisions centralized in the hands of the new president.
Before the swearing-in ceremony, the new presidential style committed some
errors, but the economic policy was clearly outlined. On the one hand, the pres-
ident announced that his government would cancel the construction of the new
Mexico City airport, which had already been 30% built and involved import-
ant Mexican business groups. Analysts have concluded that this cancelation
was very expensive for the nation, in both economic and political terms. The
president tried to legitimize his decision by calling for a kind of “popular refer-
endum,” organized by his own party, using mechanisms that lacked any legal
basis, where the people supposedly opted to cancel the Texcoco airport project.
All of this occurred before he had even been sworn in.
López Obrador’s new government was sending a very negative message. The
business sector found many reasons to distrust it and became more uncertain
regarding investment contracts with the new administration. Furthermore, the
president’s alternative proposal was to use the military airbase in Santa Lucía
as a civilian airport. The new government was unable to calm the doubts about
the viability of the new project, and there was no master plan to make the new
airport viable. The result was a series of lawsuits and writs of amparo that are
holding back the construction in both Texcoco and Santa Lucía. It will be difficult
for the presidential promise of a new airport in 3 years to be kept. One year has
ended with no legal end in sight.
Still, more than the delay in the construction of the public work, the problem
lies in the perception of incompetence at the government level in dealing with
these types of problems. No negotiations were held about the decision taken, but
the president had to engage in a difficult dialogue with investors to solve judicial
conflicts, which implied a high cost for the nation’s purse, and there has been no
progress in solving this problem that the city faces.

Austerity and its Consequences

The second topic that the president took on was the application of extreme
austerity measures that remodeled like never before, how the government appa-
ratus functioned. The president’s austerity model earned him popularity among
public opinion, since it was started by reducing substantially his salary and ap-
plied strictly the norm that no government official could earn more than the
president. All types of cuts to public spending were made, and López Obrador
 Andrés Manuel López Obrador 289

did not miss the opportunity to emphasize that the neoliberal privileges enjoyed
by government officials of past administrations were ending. The budget cuts
meant laying off many government workers in departments including consult-
ing, administrative assistance, chauffeuring, and others. The president closed
several government offices, such as bureaus all over the world that promoted
tourism to Mexico, and part of the nation’s embassy and consulate personnel.
Yet he remained popular for making other decisions that were correct, such as
leaving the traditional “Los Pinos” presidential residence and moving to the
National Palace in downtown Mexico City.
In public opinion, austerity was not a problem in and of itself, but it was per-
ceived as a series of cuts that were not necessarily based on a previous diagnosis
of government spending, and it was identified as a significant way to reduce
corruption. Less money and privilege was identified as a path toward reducing
corruption; however, soon the effects of laying off 70% of dependable personnel
in the public offices were seen. In many cases, there was a lack of valuable, expe-
rienced technicians who were aware of the daily government workings.

Results from the First Year

Toward the end of 2019, reality has put into context the reach of the presiden-
tial project. The president has made an effort to keep his campaign promises,
especially the list of 100 topics that he read during his speech in Mexico City’s
central plaza Zócalo the day he was sworn in. In general, the overview of prog-
ress is not all positive.
1. In his fight against gasoline theft all over the nation, a serious gas
shortage resulted in large cities, including the capital; moreover, the
policy of preventing the armed forces from “suppressing” the people
meant that an explosion at a pipeline in Tlalhuelilpan, Hidalgo, where
fuel was being stolen, was not averted, leading to the death of several
so-called “huachicoleros,” or gasoline thieves.
2. The discord with the business sector, stemming from the cancellation of the
Texcoco airport, was aggravated by Morena’s sketchy attempt to pass a law
to cancel, or at least reduce significantly, commissions for banking services.
3. The new strategy against insecurity met with serious resistance among
the armed forces and the federal police, so it took a long time for the new
“National Guard” to be created, and it still has not shown any significant
results.
4. The idea to eliminate the middlemen between the government and the pop-
ulation in handing over resources in support of some public policies led to
the disappearance of the so-called “Children’s Centers,” where many moth-
ers took their children to be cared for, watched over, and protected. As was
to be expected, an important controversy arose, but the government did not
take a single step back in its strategy.
5. The president’s intention to modify the constitution to speed up the devel-
opment of popular referendums and set up the revocation of an elected man-
date was held up in the Senate, where Morena does not have a two-thirds
290 Latin American Policy

majority to pass this reform. In October 2019, there would appear to be no

resolution on this point that was one of the centerpieces of the presidential
campaign. It will be difficult for the president to get the original proposal
passed.
6. The president’s team has also shown a lack of coordination and alignment
in goals and strategies. A case in point was the resignation letter submitted
by Germán Martínez, who was the director of the Mexican Social Security
Institute. In it, he complained that the institute’s autonomy was not being
respected and noted that government workers from the Finance Ministry
were putting health services provided by the Social Security Institute at risk.
A few weeks later, several health centers began to suffer because of the short-
age of medicine.
7. Finally, the Minister of Finance and Public Credit himself, Carlos Urzúa, also
quit, after writing a letter in which he detailed how he disagreed with sev-
eral budget policies. In fact, it came out that when the 2018–2024 National
Development Plan was presented, two documents were circulating at the
same time—one drawn up by the Finance Ministry, which followed the set
of regulations, and another sent by the presidency, which was more like a
political manifesto on the vision for what Mexico should be in 2024.
In general, indicators from the first three quarters of this year are not posi-
tive in terms of the results that López Obrador expected, particularly regarding
economic growth. There also do not seem to be good results on security matters.
All things considered, the president has held on to high approval ratings with
the population. Many of the factors that allowed him to rise to power are still
present, and the president has a particular government style that many Mexicans
still like. Some of the aspects that help with his image, at least among his fol-
lowers and the voters who will choose the new Chamber of Deputies in 2021,
include his daily press conferences, his constant visits to different states within
the nation, his message reaffirming his campaign discourse, and his criticism of
Mexico’s corrupt past.
Meanwhile, upper-middle and middle-class sectors, as well as groups affected
by the new austerity measures (intellectuals, media, bureaucrats ousted by the
cuts, civil-society organizations, and others) remain critical of the new govern-
ment. Furthermore, despite the balance in macroeconomic indicators, neither
private investment is increasing nor is employment, and the outflow of capital
from the country might trigger some concern for the upcoming months.

Concerns
The new presidential style challenges constantly the workings of institutions
created over the last four administrations, especially those related to elections
processes, transparency, and access to public data. Some legal proposals and re-
forms backed by Morena and the president himself have led to the idea that
López Obrador’s success could push him to make legal changes that would
allow him to remain in power beyond 2024. The president has had to appear to
the media several times to put down these speculations. He even signed a nota-
rized document stating that he would not seek reelection.
 Andrés Manuel López Obrador 291

Still, there is no doubt that Mexico is going back to a power system in which
the president is a central figure, and both his party and the party leaders wait
for presidential guidelines before they act. It is how the president managed to
undo the education reform undertaken by Peña Nieto’s administration and how
he has everything he needs to push for a new energy strategy, regardless of any
criticism or reasoning from experts and analysts.
Thus far, reality has been the greatest counterweight to government pol-
icy, because there is not much room for political negotiations. Yet in the first
months of 2020, the political struggle will intensify, as the 2021 midterm elections
approach and the political parties start to regroup. Morena will then be forced to
face the internal differences it has with its leader, the president of Mexico.

About the Authors

Arturo Sánchez-Gutiérrez is the Associate Dean of the School of Government
and Public Transformation at the Tecnológico de Monterrey.