Mexico’s economic inequality and corruption have always provided fertile ground for the growth of populist movements throughout history. The current president, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, better known as AMLO, is but the latest iteration of populist sentiment in the country. The Mexican people, fed up with corruption and insecurity, gave their overwhelming vote to AMLO. The president has promised to lift the poor, end corruption, and fight the neoliberal economic policies his predecessors have instituted, which he says, have been disastrous for the country. This rhetoric is not new in Mexico, it has been used by other populist presidents in Mexico such as Benito Juarez and Lazaro Cardenas, two of AMLO’s heroes. In this essay, we will examine the article Mexico needs statecraft, yet its president offers theatre by the Economist. We will examine AMLO’s policies and will contrast them with President Lazaro Cardenas, one of the most well-known historical figures in Mexico. Both men come from humble beginnings, both fought hard to become the leader of the country, and both were staunch populists.
The article Mexico needs statecraft, yet its president offers theatre, by the Economist, gives a harsh analysis of AMLO’s presidency so far. The president came to power with several problems at hand, income inequality, rampant crime, and a slowing economy. While he promised to solve all these problems, there has been little to show for it so far. Insecurity is still high, and he has shied away from using government spending to stimulate the economy. His rhetoric against business interests has spooked foreign investors, which in turn hurts a country so dependent on foreign capital. According to the Economist, AMLO “has stalled private energy investment, on nationalist grounds. The government will pay for AMLO’s pet $7.4bn railway in the south-east, after it failed to interest investors.” Some of his success comes from expanding economic government programs to alleviate the plight of the poor and to support students so they can go to college. His performance, by most metrics, has been lacking. By continuing to give fiery speeches against corruption and neoliberals, the president continues to be popular in Mexico. AMLO is renowned for being able to capture a crowd and being able to use mass media to portray himself in a more flattering view.
Lazaro Cardenas was the president of Mexico from 1934 to 1940. Much like AMLO, he had a penchant for doing highly symbolic acts that helped him gain the endearment of the people. According to Alexander Dawson, once Cardenas was president, “The highly symbolic actions continued. Cárdenas refused to move into the presidential palace, preferring to convert Chapultepec Castle into the National Museum of History. He immediately cut his salary in half. Legendary is the story that he would cancel cabinet meetings in favor of visiting poor peasants who had lost their cattle to disease.” (213). The bold actions Cardenas took on behalf of the Mexican people is what cemented his legacy. Cardenas oversaw a massive land redistribution program where land belonging to the wealthy was broken up and redistributed to farmers. According to Dawson, Cardenas “distributed forty-five million acres of land to peasants, so that by 1940 nearly one-third of Mexicans had received land via reform.” (214). In 1938, President Cardenas took a decision that would impact Mexicans for generations to come. For decades powerful foreign interests dominated the Mexican oil market; this was highly controversial in Mexico. The people viewed foreign oil companies as foreigners stealing Mexico’s natural resources. President Cardenas announced that foreign companies would be kicked out; and that the oil industry would be nationalized. These acts viewed as helping the poor and fighting the rich won him the lasting endearment of the Mexican people. Much like AMLO, Cardenas was very skilled in portraying himself as a man of the people and using the media to get his message heard across the country.
Cardenas and AMLO are populists from different periods in time, but they both enjoyed broad support from the poor and working class. AMLO has a similar mandate to Cardenas, help the poor and fight the corruption of the elites. AMLO has instituted government programs to help the poor, but it seems that while it has helped him maintain support with the poor, it has done little to fix the income inequality problem. AMLO has also taken an interest in PEMEX, the state-owned oil giant that came to be after Cardenas nationalized the oil industry. PEMEX has historically been used as a cash cow to fund government programs, but in the last few decades, it has begun to falter due to massive corruption within and a lack of modernization. Mexico passed an energetic reform in 2012 to attract foreign investment to Mexico’s oil industry. AMLO has since attacked the reform and has vowed to support PEMEX as a matter of national pride. Much like Cardenas, AMLO wants to be a man of the people, willing to stand up to corrupt business interests. Like many populists, AMLO attacks the media when they offer less than flattering views of him but masterfully uses this to prove that he is a fighter standing up for the people. According to the Economist, “poor policy performance is bad for Mexico, but not necessarily for the president. Polls put his approval rating at between 55% and 72%. Many poorer Mexicans see him as honest and on their side. His potential Achilles heel is crime and insecurity. His remedy is likely to be more political theatre, at which he is a master.” It would remain to be seen if AMLO can turn the tide and transform Mexico the way Lazaro Cardenas was able to.
Works Cited
Dawson, Alexander. Latin America since Independence : A History with Primary Sources, Taylor & Francis Group, 2014. ProQuest Ebook Central, https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/baruch/detail.action?docID=1779185.
Reed, Michael. “Mexico Needs Statecraft, Yet Its President Offers Theatre.” The Economist, The Economist Newspaper, 2020, www.economist.com/the-americas/2020/02/27/mexico-needs-statecraft-yet-its-president-offers-theatre.