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Supporters of MORENA presidential candidate Claudia Sheinbaum attend the closure of her presidential campaign at the Zocalo, the nation's main public square in Mexico City, on May 29, days ahead of the election on Sunday.
Viewpoint: AMLO looms large in Mexico’s upcoming elections
Ahead of the June 2 elections, two accomplished women, the ruling party’s Claudia Sheinbaum and the opposition’s Xochitl Galvez, are vying for the distinction of becoming Mexico’s first female president. Meanwhile, criminal organizations trying to assert their influence in down-ballot races are threatening and killing a record number of candidates for local office.
Yet there is an even bigger presence shaping the outcome of these elections: outgoing President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, popularly known as AMLO. Constitutionally limited to a single six-year term in office, the immensely popular leader appears to have positioned his leftist Morena party to dominate Mexican politics for another six years. We asked Eurasia Group expert Matias Gomez Leautaud to explain.
What would you say are voters’ main concerns?
Across every single poll, violence and insecurity are the top concerns, followed by the state of the economy or corruption. But what we’re seeing is that this preoccupation with crime does not seem to be influencing voter intentions in races at the national level or the state level, where this concern is most acute. You see this in states with terrible security situations governed by Morena, such as Tabasco and Chiapas, and by opposition parties, such as Guanajuato and Jalisco.
Then what is driving voter intentions?
One factor is polarization, which allows ineffective state governments to remain in power because voters perceive the alternative to be worse. But a bigger factor is the influence of Lopez Obrador, who has shifted the political environment in Morena’s favor. In the presidential race, he has been successful at positioning his protégé Sheinbaum as the candidate of continuity. A former mayor of Mexico City, she was not too well known in the rest of the country. So, starting a few years ago, the party has taken every opportunity to get her in front of voters at events outside the capital.
And how has Sheinbaum tried to position herself as the candidate of continuity?
A physicist by training, Sheinbaum got her start in politics working for Lopez Obrador when he was the mayor of Mexico City. Ahead of these elections, Sheinbaum has been disciplined in her messaging, promising to maintain and build on the president’s legacy. She has even mimicked his slow style of speaking on occasion, and once during a speech in Tabasco, Lopez Obrador’s home state, she even tried to replicate his accent. (Tabasco is a rural state with a large indigenous population in the south of the country.) These efforts to step into Lopez Obrador’s shoes have been successful; the polls suggest she could get more votes than he did in 2018.
Why is Lopez Obrador so popular?
With his rhetorical attacks against traditional political and economic elites, expansion of social programs, and hikes of the minimum wage, Lopez Obrador has created a persona of a “man-of-the-people” looking out for workers’ rights. Despite the lack of feasibility of most of his pet infrastructure projects, voters perceive him as an effective president who gets things done, unlike his predecessors.
Moreover, with his slow speech, thick Tabasco accent, and frequent jokes, Lopez Obrador has brought a new folksy style to Mexican politics that his supporters love. Millions tune in every morning to the mañaneras, press briefings that set the agenda for the country’s daily news coverage. For two hours, the silver-haired president expounds on the issues of the day, takes softball questions from friendly journalists, and mixes it up a little with jokes and music. On one memorable occasion, he responded to a US demand for trade dispute talks over Mexico’s energy policies by playing a popular Cumbia song called “Uy, qué miedo” (Ooo, so scared). As a video of the song played on a screen behind him, the president joined in the laughter of those in attendance (fun fact: In 2023, Lopez Obrador was the most-watched Spanish-speaking streamer on YouTube in Latin America).
He has also drawn accusations of authoritarianism, right?
A key part of Lopez Obrador’s agenda has been to centralize more power in the presidency, and his administration has proposed legislative changes to the electoral framework, the judiciary, and other institutions that have eroded checks and balances. At the same time, Lopez Obrador’s treatment of critical journalists has grown increasingly heavy-handed. He has testy exchanges with them at the mañaneras and on a couple of occasions has publicly disclosed their telephone numbers and other personal information. Some Mexican newspapers and television stations have quietly removed critical voices.
What is the state of the opposition?
In response to the 2018 landslide victory by Lopez Obrador and his upstart Morena party, the country’s traditional political formations failed to seize on the opportunity to rethink their approach to politics. Previous presidents and their advisers have had technocratic profiles. They studied abroad and were profiled in the media wearing nice suits and expensive watches. Though they carried out pro-market reforms most economists thought necessary, they failed to explain them in terms that ordinary people could understand. Currently, their proposals are just outright opposition to Lopez Obrador’s policies, some of which are very popular among voters. With no promise of a better future, the opposition remains focused on returning to a past that most voters don’t want.
Is Xochitl Galvez an effective candidate?
The opposition probably stumbled into the best candidate it could have. She was not initially the preferred choice of any of the three parties that make up the main opposition coalition, but she ran an effective internal campaign and secured the nomination. There was probably a political calculation that the coalition should field a female candidate to take on Sheinbaum. And Galvez has an inspiring personal story of someone who grew up in a poor village, won a scholarship to the university, and became a tech entrepreneur. Yet she has struggled to perform the difficult balancing act of distancing herself from the discredited opposition parties while retaining their support.
How long can Morena continue to dominate Mexico’s politics?
If Sheinbaum wins, she will not be as strong a president as Lopez Obrador and will face more spending constraints after the expansion of social welfare programs under the current administration. This will open an opportunity for the opposition to win back some voters. In addition to the presidential and congressional races on June 2, it will be important to monitor the results of nine governor races. If Morena is able to win most of them, it will be the overwhelmingly dominant political force in the medium term. But if it loses in key states such as Veracruz or Mexico City, this would be a sign that voters may grow disaffected from Morena sooner.
Edited by Jonathan House, Senior Editor, Eurasia Group
Putin backs Lukashenko; Taliban peace talks; UNGA75 goes virtual
Number one, your questions. Can Putin rescue Belarus' President from his own people?
Well, not really. In the sense that Belarus has shown that their special services and their military are still very much loyal to Lukashenko. And while there have been significant and very courageous demonstrations of the Belarusian people across the country, and particularly in Minsk, among all of the major enterprises, state industry, the demonstrations happened briefly and then they stopped, because people didn't want to lose their jobs and their livelihood. And the fact that this is now gone on for well over a month. I mean, President Putin has basically said that he was going to act as the backstop for Lukashenko. He'd provide military support if needed. He's now provided some additional cash, a loan of over a billion dollars, they're saying, and it was a deeply embarrassing trip by the Belarusian President to Sochi, to bend on knee, and prostrate himself in front of his boss and ruler, the Russian President.
But it seems pretty clear that Russia is willing to take steps to ensure that Lukashenko stays in power. Unless he really oversteps by trying to clear out with a lot of violence, his own people. If he's willing to be patient, I suspect, and you don't have a unified opposition, the Belarusian people are nowhere near as organized as the Ukrainians were, and they don't have the international support that the Ukrainians did. I suspect that this looks more like Venezuela, where a lot of people are hoping, myself included, that Lukashenko is forced out, but he isn't forced out. In that regard, Lukashenko has very much been bolstered and supported by the Russian President, and probably doesn't have to pick up his dacha on the Russian coast of the Black Sea.
What do you make of the Taliban peace talks in Doha?
Well, it's good that peace talks are going on. The United States very clearly wants to get out of Afghanistan, the longest standing military conflict in American history. We're well into two decades at this point. It's a lot of people dead. A lot of American soldier's dead and injured. Trillions of dollars spent and vastly more Afghan civilians, as well as military killed. The fact that the Americans are sitting down with the Taliban directly as part of these talks in Doha, in Qatar, show that the world has changed. That the Americans are prepared to say, "If you could sit down with Kim Jong-un, you can certainly sit down with the Taliban." I'm even a little surprised that the US hasn't tried harder to sit down with the Iranian leadership, just because Trump generally thinks that you get anyone in the room and there's a shot, so why not? Harder for Iran, because the country itself is more divided. Interestingly, the Taliban, this is not just with the Afghan government. It's also with the opposition, because they say they don't recognize the government.
My concern here is that the Taliban right now are playing nice. They are willing to support a more consistent cease fire. They're willing to say the right things in terms of shared governance and Islamic state. But that's because there are still US troops in Afghanistan, and they are drawing down. My view is that the Taliban understands that time is on their side, and once the Americans leave, and the interest of the Americans at that point in continuing to pay huge amounts of money into the Afghan coffers, and that is most of the Afghan state budget is American aid at this point, goes down. Then the Taliban are in a vastly better position to refuse continued talks, step up military attacks and the Afghan government collapses. I'm not in any way clear that this is a positive for Afghanistan, because I'm just not convinced the Americans have a lot of staying power, once the troops are out. I'm completely sympathetic to pulling the troops out. I wish that the Americans were more willing, absent US troops to be heavily involved in continued humanitarian aid, and diplomacy in a multilateral format. This administration certainly is not. I'm not sure a Biden Administration would do a lot more on that front either.
Why is Mexico's President raffling off his own plane?
Well, he's really anti-corruption. This is a guy who's still at almost 60% approval ratings, despite having mishandled coronavirus pretty badly, and the economy in free fall. Largely that's because he is not only seen as being anti-corrupt, but he's truly anti-corrupt. In Brazil, Bolsonaro was really seen as being anti-corrupt, but a lot of the recent cases against members of his family are putting a question to that. Where Lopez Obrador truly, is not on the take. I think that makes him very widely supported. He's opened the Presidential Palace on days for the people to be able to come in and see it. That was a big populous move. Also offering to raffle off his presidential plane. He doesn't need a presidential plane. He can fly commercial he says. That also was such a move. Unfortunately, it's been a bit of a dog's breakfast in terms of the way it's come about. They've not been able to sell it. The raffle prizes will actually be cash, as opposed to the plane itself. The whole thing has been handled bureaucratically in a lousy way, and an economically inefficient way. That describes a lot of his administration so far, even if the intentions are pretty good. One thing I will say is when I talked to a lot of people on the other side, a lot of Mexican conservatives, especially former conservatives in government that know Lopez Obrador personally. They like him. They like him as a person. They say he's a good man. He's a decent man, but my God, they think he's horrible in government. I think that divide is getting bigger over time.
Finally, what can we expect from the 75th UN General Assembly?
Well, it's virtual, so you're going to have a lot of speeches, but the speeches will not be delivered in person. Of course, politics is very much a contact sport. You're not going to have all of these bilaterals on the sidelines, which is where the biggest news usually gets made. But, a big speech at the UN from the Chinese President in this environment, given what's happening for example, in Hong Kong and with the United States, and Australia, and Canada, pretty interesting. From the Indian Prime Minister, what he has to say about China, pretty interesting. From Mohammad Bin Salman, what he's going to say about the opening of relations with Israel, and about Iran. There are more pieces at play geopolitically in the 75th UN General Assembly, than at any time in my lifetime. Even though it's going to be virtual, the nature of the speeches themselves are probably going to be more content heavy, and more interesting for those of us observing on the sidelines, than you would otherwise normally expect.
We're doing an enormous amount of programming, GZERO, Eurasia Group, and Microsoft together to bring the virtual UN General Assembly to all of you. You can check it out through the social feeds here, as well as on gzeromedia.com. We're kicking it off with an hour interview between myself and my good friend, Antonio Guterres, Secretary General. It is convivial and pretty open. I think you'll get a kick out of that, and you'll be lots of surprises over the course of the week.