Mexico’s New President Promised a Revolution. Has It Begun?

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/21/world/americas/mexico-lopez-obrador.html

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MEXICO CITY — In barely three weeks in office, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador of Mexico has been on a relentless gallop to upset the status quo.

He has championed a new law to cut the highest government salaries and raise the lowest ones, and proposed the expansion of social programs benefiting the poor and marginalized, whom he has declared to be his primary concern.

He has aggressively moved forward on a plan to cancel construction of an expensive, partially completed airport.

And in a move replete with symbolism, on the day of his inauguration, he turned the official presidential residence into a cultural center and opened it to the public — producing images of ordinary people, once sealed off from the site by a fierce perimeter of security, freely wandering its grounds in amazement and joy.

As a candidate, Mr. López Obrador promised a revolution. If elected, he vowed, he would curb corruption, end impunity, strengthen the economy, pacify the country, level out inequality and empower the disenfranchised.

His message was immensely popular with Mexican voters, who handed him a landslide victory in July and gave his party, Morena — which didn’t even exist in the last presidential election — a majority in both chambers of Congress.

These are early days yet in Mr. López Obrador’s six-year term. But the alacrity with which he has burst out of the gates, measured against the supremely high expectations he cultivated has led some to ask: Is Mexico on the cusp of a historic turning point — or a historic disappointment?

He seems to know full well that this is the query on everyone’s lips, and that the skeptics and critics are circling, vigilant for the first hints of hypocrisy and failure.

“Starting now, a transformation is underway, peaceful and orderly, but at the same time profound and radical,” he said during his inauguration speech on Dec. 1. “Because the corruption and impunity that impede Mexico’s rebirth will end.”

Mr. López Obrador spent some of his early political career as an organizer for poor indigenous populations in his home state, Tabasco. Since then, he has sought to keep at least one foot, if not both, firmly planted among the nation’s marginalized.

In doing so, he has struck a sharp contrast with his predecessor, President Enrique Peña Nieto.

Where Mr. Peña Nieto, a member of a politically well-connected family, was viewed by many as remote and elitist, Mr. López Obrador has sought to be accessible, a commoner among commoners.

Where Mr. Peña Nieto was polished, with television-ready good looks and sleek suits, Mr. López Obrador is rumpled, his face often bent in a rictus of annoyance, like a guy who just walked in off the street and isn’t having a great day.

When Mr. López Obrador invited the public into the presidential residence, for generations the most exclusive domain of Mexican political power, he was fulfilling a popular campaign promise.

He has said he will continue to live in his home in southern Mexico City until his youngest son finishes primary school and then will look for what he calls “a modest house” near the National Palace, his office in the city center.

He continues to get around Mexico City in his old Volkswagen, eschewing a presidential limousine. He disbanded the presidential secret service, surrounding himself with a security detail of 20 unarmed citizens representing a cross-section of Mexico society.

“I don’t want to lose my close relationship with citizens, with the people,” he said. “I don’t want to be fenced off.”

Where Mr. Peña Nieto rarely met with the press and even more rarely took questions, Mr. López Obrador has held daily televised news conferences.

For Mr. López Obrador these sessions, which begin at 7 a.m., not only reinforce the culture of accessibility but have also allowed him to set the day’s news agenda.

One of Mr. López Obrador’s boldest executive moves came before he even took office.

In late October, he announced that he intended to cancel construction of a new airport after an informal referendum organized by his own party and involving fewer than 2 percent of the nation’s eligible voters. He said the $13 billion project was wasteful and plagued by corruption.

The move to cancel the project, which is one-third complete, sank the peso and the Mexican markets and spread uncertainty among investors and business leaders, who feared Mr. López Obrador would take an arbitrary approach to managing the economy.

The effort to shut down the project is now on hold while the government wrestles with investors over the terms of a construction bond buyback.

But it was an initial salvo in Mr. López Obrador’s declared war on wasteful government spending.

Under the proposed new law to cut the highest government salaries and raise the lowest ones, no bureaucrat can earn more than the president. And since Mr. López Obrador has set his salary at about $5,350 per month — less than half of Mr. Peña Nieto’s salary — that meant sharp cuts in the wages of more than 30,000 public officials.

The law also slashed the pensions of the last five presidents.

“We can’t have a rich government and poor people,” Mr. López Obrador said at a news conference last week.

The legislation was met with a blizzard of lawsuits, and the Supreme Court has suspended the law pending a final ruling.

Mr. López Obrador’s austerity has even extended to the presidential air fleet. He has sought to sell the presidential plane, another campaign promise, and now insists on flying on commercial airlines — economy class — even if means getting stuck on the runway during inevitable delays.

A budget submitted by Mr. López Obrador’s finance minister over the weekend, expected to be approved by Congress in the coming days, was applauded by analysts for its sobriety and fiscal prudence.

On the campaign trail, Mr. López Obrador attacked a longstanding policy of using the military to fight the drug war. He emphasized reconciliation, even raising the possibility of amnesties for low-level criminals.

But on his first full day in office this month, he backpedaled, lauding a bill that would keep the military on the streets as part of a newly created National Guard that would also integrate civilian police.

“The people of Mexico need their armed forces to address this grave problem of insecurity and violence right now,” he said during a speech, flanked by generals. “We trust the armed forces.”

Critics have pounced on the proposal as evidence that at least some of Mr. López Obrador’s campaign promises were hollow showmanship. The plan has also worried human rights advocates, who say it will amount to the same heavy-handed and ultimately unsuccessful approach advocated by his two most recent predecessors.

Mr. López Obrador has said he plans to put the issue to a public referendum in the coming months.

Since taking office, he has also sought to address one of the open wounds in Mexican justice: the disappearance of 43 students in 2014. The case, which remains unsolved, became a scandal for the Mexican government, which was accused by victims’ advocates of, at best, mismanaging the investigation and, at worst, covering up the truth.

In June, a federal court in Mexico ordered the government to form a “truth and justice commission” consisting of federal officials and victims’ representatives. On Dec. 3, Mr. López Obrador created that body.

“We are not going to wash our hands of this,” he declared.

Mr. López Obrador has repeatedly vowed to look out for all citizens, with special attention given to the poor.

His administration’s proposed budget seemed to deliver in part on this promise, and includes increases in social security spending for the elderly, an expansion of scholarship initiatives for students, and billions of dollars to fund job-training and other programs for unemployed youth.

This was followed by the announcement of a 16 percent minimum wage increase across the country.

Mr. López Obrador has also promised to focus attention on the impoverished southern states of Mexico, proposing to step up development in the region, including an ambitious train project connecting the Yucatán Peninsula to the state of Chiapas that he says will spur employment and tourism.

On Tuesday, the United States State Department, after lobbying by the López Obrador administration, said the United States government was prepared to “invest and mobilize $2 billion” beyond its current development commitments in Mexico.

The promise was part of a broader commitment to support an ambitious plan, floated this month by the Mexican government, to strengthen economic growth in Central America and southern Mexico as a way to help stem migration to the United States.

“I said during the campaign: Look after everyone, listen to everyone, respect everyone, but give special attention to the humble,” Mr. López Obrador said at a news conference. “For the good of all, the poor first.”