Mexico Goes Hard Left In Presidential Election – Now What? [VIDEO]

Mexico Goes Hard Left In Presidential Election – Now What? [VIDEO]

Mexico Goes Hard Left In Presidential Election – Now What? [VIDEO]

As predicted, the ultra-left candidate Andrés Manuel López Obrador (known popularly by his initials AMLO) was elected president of Mexico on Sunday.

It was a pretty wide margin of victory that saw the other challengers conceding quickly.

Delivering early and clear acceptances of their defeats, the two main challengers have recognised Andrés Manuel López Obrador as the winner of the presidential race.

On a tough night for the ruling PRI party, their candidate, the former economy minister Jose Antonio Meade, conceded first after polls closed. Next, and even more significantly, the other main rival, Ricardo Anaya of the PAN party, also recognised Mr López Obrador’s victory.

The official results must still be published for the margin of the win to be confirmed but this is a night that Mr López Obrador and his supporters have been waiting for since 2006 – the first time he stood for the presidency in Mexico. Now, on the third attempt, he has finally taken it and, in so doing, redrawn the political map of the country.

And once again, let us all be thankful that we don’t have the same election problems as Mexico.

Sunday’s election followed one of Mexico’s deadliest campaigns in decades with more than 130 political candidates and party workers killed.

And you thought the 2016 election was bad.

So, who is this guy, anyway?

Even the New York Times has dubbed López Obrador a “leftist.”

Mr. López Obrador’s win puts a leftist leader at the helm of Latin America’s second-largest economy for the first time in decades, a prospect that has filled millions of Mexicans with hope — and the nation’s elites with trepidation.

The outcome represents a clear rejection of the status quo in the nation, which for the last quarter century has been defined by a centrist vision and an embrace of globalization that many Mexicans feel has not served them.

The core promises of Mr. López Obrador’s campaign — to end corruption, reduce violence and address Mexico’s endemic poverty — were immensely popular with voters, but they come with questions he and his new government may struggle to answer.

Seeing as López Obrador called moving to the United States “a human right“…

According to a report from Eluniversal, candidate Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) said the people should flee Mexico to find a life in the United States, which is a pretty dismal message coming from a presidential candidate. The equivalent would be President Trump telling Americans to flee for Canada.

“And soon, very soon — after the victory of our movement — we will defend all the migrants in the American continent and all the migrants in the world,” Obrador said on Tuesday while calling on people to “leave their towns and find a life in the United States.”

This fleeing to the United States would be “a human right we will defend.”

Sounds like López Obrador has decided that the best solution for Mexico is to just have everyone move north, right? Why was he elected, again?

The NYT, which can’t resist comparing him to Donald Trump, puts it this way:

How he will pay for his ambitious slate of social programs without overspending and harming the economy? How will he rid the government of bad actors when some of those same people were a part of his campaign? Can he make a dent in the unyielding violence of the drug war, which left Mexico with more homicides last year than any time in the last two decades?

And how will Mr. López Obrador, a firebrand with a tendency to dismiss his critics in the media and elsewhere, govern?

Here are the answers:
1) The Mexican economy has picked up some steam in the first quarter of 2018, but if López Obrador’s solution is just to undo reforms (the education reforms being a prime example), then it’s going to continue to be a disaster.
2) He won’t.
3) Even the NYT acknowledges that he has no solutions to the ongoing gang violence problems.

On the issue of violence, Mr. López Obrador has largely failed to articulate a policy that goes much beyond platitudes. At one point, he said that amnesty for low-level offenders could be an option, as a way to end the cycle of incarceration.

When the suggestion summoned widespread criticism, he claimed the idea was merely an effort to think outside the box. But analysts say there is little that distinguishes his platform from those of other candidates, or even his predecessor, Mr. Peña Nieto.

4) Rather than compare him to Trump, López Obrador sounds an awful lot like someone else in American politics…

On the issue of fighting graft, perhaps the signature element of his campaign, few believe that it will be easy to address the complex realities of systemic corruption.

That could set up Mr. López Obrador to be a continuation of the disappointment that so many voters are reacting to.

“The biggest problem I see are the expectations he has built,” said Carlos Illades, a professor of social sciences at the Autonomous Metropolitan University and a historian of Mexico’s left. “The problem is going to be what he is not able to do. There are people who are expecting a lot.”

Welcome to Mexico’s “hope and change” era. But this is the guy that Trump will have to deal with going forward.


Buckle up, everyone, because López Obrador is the Mexican president for the next six years.

Written by

8 Comments
  • Utility Muffin Research Kitchen says:

    Now it will be a glorious workers utopia with unicorn fewmets and magic chocolate fountains everywhere.
    One man will clean up 80+ years of absolute corruption. (not really)

  • Scott says:

    Imagine that, the mexican “government” telling it’s people to invade another country… Ya know, we captured Mexico City once.. we should have freakin held it! Barring that, we need to build the damn wall NOW!! before the flood really hits.

  • GWB says:

    a leftist leader … filled millions of Mexicans with hope
    Why would a leftist being elected EVER fill anyone with hope? Other than his fellow politburo members? Communism/fascism/marxism is the antithesis of hope.

    How he will pay for his ambitious slate of social programs without overspending and harming the economy?
    Wait, WHAT?! How could overspending ever harm the economy? The Times better check its newsroom for someone who’s been exposed to real economics, and purge The Body.

    the cycle of incarceration
    Oh yes, this old chestnut. Because we randomly lock people up THEN they begin committing crimes…..

    Welcome to Mexico’s “hope and change” era.
    Because the peasants desire a messiah. It’s true everywhere. “If only THAT guy will save us!”
    If you want to turn Mexico around, you have to 1) eliminate the cartels and 2) change the attitudes of the people so they embrace the Enlightenment principles and ideals that made America great. Either one of those is inadequate without the other (though the second might lead to the first).

    • Callie Mae says:

      I’m not sure that it’s possible to eliminate the cartels without first completely overhauling the government of Mexico. They are firmly entrenched in every part of the government, from the federal level down to the smallest village police force, probably even the military. It would require a massive effort, likely including simultaneous raids on every cartel stronghold, and I’m not certain that there are enough non-corrupt police/military to carry out such an effort.

      There are citizens of Mexico who are tired of the corruption and the failure of the federal government, but they don’t speak up for fear of being killed. They don’t make waves, they don’t run for office; they just keep their heads down and try to remain inconspicuous.

      It’s really too bad that we didn’t just keep the Mexico territory after the war all those years ago…..would have saved us a lot of problems in the long run.

  • Jimmy Tijuas says:

    He will kick out the PRI crooks and insert his own henchmen to suck Mexico dry.

  • Flying Dutchman says:

    At its base, leftism is a suicide pact. Keynes himself said, “In the long run, we’re all dead.”

  • CapitalistRoader says:

    Buckle up, everyone, because López Obrador is the Mexican president for the next six years.

    So, about six months more than President Trump’s likely tenure.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Subscribe
Become a Victory Girl!

Are you interested in writing for Victory Girls? If you’d like to blog about politics and current events from a conservative POV, send us a writing sample here.
Ava Gardner
gisonboat
rovin_readhead