Many of you have asked us to make a video about the Mexican elections: arguably, the
most important in
the history of Mexico, which, at the same time it is the World’s biggest Spanish-Speaking
country.
But
why are these so important?
Because this might be the first in history where Mexico will say Goodbye to
bipartisan politics.
Election polls: LOPEZ OBRADOR is 10.9 points above its biggest rival
But wait a minute because, in fact, Mexico was not an actual bipartisan country.
In fact, Mexico had the
same political party in the government for over 70 years.
Yes, you heard that right.
Since 1930 until the
year 2000, all the Mexican presidents belonged to the Institutional Revolutionary Party,
also known as
PRI for their Spanish acronym.
And yes, I know what you are thinking…
How can you be Revolutionary and
Institutional at the same time?
Well… nobody knows that.
But this is the name they gave to this party.
Theoretically, this is a center-left wing party although many Mexicans would say they
are just a catch up
all party, with no clear ideology except by their lust for power.
The truth is, for 70 years, PRI was winning every election.
After the year 2000, Mexicans had a 12 years
hiatus of the conservative National Action Party, also known as PAN.
Then, in 2012, the PRI stroke back
with ENRIQUE PEÑA NIETO as the president, a guy who now holds the title of Mexico’s
most hated president
of all times.
And this is why in this very moment, 2018, when Mexico will have this game changing elections
on June the
first, chances are nor the PRI, nor the PAN will get the office.
The front runner is this man you see on
the screen.
His name is ANDRES MANUEL LOPEZ OBRADOR.
Businessmen are worried by the LOPEZ OBRADOR economic agenda
This is the third time he runs for office.
And it might the ultimate one.
ANDRES MANUEL LOPEZ OBRADOR,
or, as Mexicans know him, AMLO, has a program that… to put it mildly, scares the shit
out of business
people and foreign investors.
Some people argue that Mexico might be on the brink of becoming the new Venezuela if
they choose a
populist politician like him.
Nonetheless, his worst enemy is not businessmen but himself.
His testimonials are scaring away all the
moderate voters.
And that is a problem because, they could direct all this anti AMLO sentiment to one
of
the other candidates.
This is why, Today’s questions are: Why can AMLO win this election?
Are there real
reasons to be scared of him?
And could any other candidate really shadow him?
Today, we are going to
answer all of this questions but before, let’s take a look back at history.
THE BIG MEXICAN DISSAPOINTMENT
At the beginning of the 21st Century, it seemed that Mexico was taking no prisoners.
With plenty of
natural resources like oil and silver, Mexican was one of the most appreciated emerging economies.
In
2010, the country’s GDP grew at a 5.5% growing rate.
Nonetheless, just like the other emerging economies
like Brazil or South Africa…
Mexico went from hero to zero in 2016.
Mexican GDP in dollars is on it’s worst level since 2010
This is surprising if we take to account that Mexico has all the opportunities to become
rich.
They have
oil, good climate for agriculture and all kinds of natural resources.
And what it’s more important: they
border with America.
As you know, NAFTA is a trade agreement between Mexico, USA and Canada.
And 80% of
Mexican exports go to Uncle Sam.
Despite all of this, Mexico is still a medium income country, with low wages and a much
more lower life
quality than its Northern Neighbours.
And do you wonder why?
Well… after 70 years of a, virtually, one
party system, corruption and drug trafficking, Mexico had almost medieval institutions.
Oh yes, I know what you are gonna say now ‘Come on, Simon, aren’t you exhagerating
a big?’
Well, judge by
yourself.
‘Til the year 2016, their judicial system had no presumption of innocence so it was
enough to
have a judge collecting proofs to find somebody guilty.
In many cases, a confession taken with torture
would be more than enough to send somebody to jail.
Imagine how would this be, that the academia experts
called this system the ‘inquisitorial judicial system’.
Add to this the drug trafficking, that has already killed more than 200 000 people…
in just 11 years!
For
a better understanding, in some areas of Mexico, narcos have more power than the state itself.
In
political science, this is called a ‘failed estate’ situation.
And this happens in many areas of Africa…
and in Mexico.
In other words…
Mexico needed more than reforms.
They needed a 1803 shift on their institutions.
And who
was the man for this job?
Of course, that would be ENRIQUE PEÑA NIETO, when he got to office in 2012.
The
problem?
It is still to early for Mexicans to notice some improvements on their day to day life
after the
reforms.
In fact, social unrest can’t stop growing.
Add to the fact that PEÑA NIETO’s worst enemy is PEÑA NIETO himself.
Few people have worked harder in
damaging their own credibility.
Basically, PEÑA NIETO has all the things needed to hate a politician:
corruption scandals, a fake PHD title and embezzlement.
But this was not enough!
Do you remember Donald
Trump’s campaign?
He was Messing with Mexicans every other day.
As you can imagine, Mexicans are no big
fans of Trump.
So well…
PEÑA NIETO’s brillian idea was to invite Trump for an official visit even before
he would become the president.
Guess what was the reaction of the Mexican people!
And how about the war
on drugs?
First he jailed EL CHAPO GUZMAN, who is the Mexican version of PABLO ESCOBAR.
After that, EL
CHAPO escaped from jail from a tunnel that was so good built that it was obvious he got
help from the
police.
In summary… unsurprisingly, PEÑA NIETO is the man you love to hate.
A Survey in Mexico: PEÑA NIETO is the Mexican president with the worst acceptance of all
times.
In other words, PEÑA NIETO and his Administration epitomizes the ultimate disappointment with
Mexican
ruling class.
So PRI is not to be trusted, PAN is not very exciting either… traditional candidates
are
not a real option anymore.
So what is left?
Well, this is the time… for AMLO!
WHO IS AMLO?
There was a time where AMLO was a member of the PRI party.
That was in the 70s.
But… look, this
Institutional Revolutionary Party was already more Institutional than Revolutionary.
This is why AMLO
left them and created another party of his own: the Democratic Revolutionary Party, the
stronghold of the
true Mexican left.
But… as you can imagine, defeating PRI was mission impossible… until the year 2000.
That year was the big
crash of the biggest Mexican party.
In one hand, they lost the presidency to the conservatives.
On the
other, they lost the Major of the City of Mexico to AMLO.
Becoming the major of the biggest metropoli in all across South America is not a small
deal.
You get a
great showcase for your policies.
And this is why, 6 years alter, AMLO almost won the presidency of the
country.
And what do you do when you “almost” win an national election… and you are the new
left wing rockstar?
You accuse the Government of election fraud, organize lots of demonstrations on the streets
and you let
your followers name you the “legitimate” president.
And all of this could happen once again… if he almost wins this time.
‘Clearly, this elections were unfair and full of irregularities’
‘I said in democracy you can win and you can loose.
But that was not a democracy’ But now that we know his history, let’s
have a look at his policies.
Basically, AMLO wants to undo all
the reforms made by the previous presidents.
Do you want examples?
Here we have the energy bill.
Prior to this law, all the Mexican oil was managed by
the state owned company, PEMEX.
This company had big losts and all kinds of corruption cases.
Peña Nieto
and his energy bill wanted to end this monopoly so foreign companies could invest in the country.
As a
result, short term wise, gasoline prices went sky high in some months.
This is why, AMLO wants to go back
to the previous situation, thinking that this would solve the problem.
The same goes with the Education bill.
Prior to this one, teacher unions have a big sway on the public
education.
Peña Nieto changed this.
The result was lots of protests organized by those teachers unions.
And, again, AMLO wants to go backwards and make those teachers happy.
And what about druck trafficking?
Well…
AMLO doesn’t stop in ending the war on drugs, which could be kind
of reasonable… we wants to make an amnesty on the big drug kingpings.
‘This so-called dangerous criminals are mere babies compared to the corrupted politicians’
But the best of his policies are what we could call the magic Tricks.
For example…
How do we end with
corruption?
Very easy!
You just nead to write a so-called ‘Moral constitution’ and remove the legal
immunity that now enjoy the members of the parliament.
This one is specially funny because this is not the first time that we see a polician
connecting this two
principles: corruption and legal immunity.
And guess what?
The least corrupted countries in the planet:
Denmark and New Zealand HAVE legal immunity to their member of the parliament.
Then again, it seems like
a very appealing policy for populists politicians worldwide.
Anyway, AMLO seems to have easy and quick solutions for everything.
Young unemployment?
Easy!
The
govermnent will employ thousands of youngsters.
And so on, so forth.
In other words…
AMLO and his brand new political party, the so called, MORENA, generate a lot of sympathy
in half of the Mexican society… and a lot of fea ron the other one.
And this is a problem because, if you wanna run for office, scaring your enemies might
galvanize them on
the election day.
So the real question now is… to what extent is AMLO willing to moderate his agenda?
POPULAR OR POPULIST?
Remember this name: ALFONSO ROMO.
He is a big businessman in MONTERREY and he has been hired by AMLO to
become the campaign’s spokesperson.
What is his mission here?
Well… he is the man in charge of moderating
AMLO’s policies and make them more palatable for the independent voters.
Having all the polls on his favour, AMLO needs those votes badly.
And ALFONSO ROMO is the man for the
job.
He comes from the business world and he used to support conservative candidates in the
past.
In
fact, many of AMLO’s advisors come from different backgrounds, including the conservative
PAN party.
And
you can tell they are really softening AMLO’s rethoric.
Do you remember I told you that AMLO wanted to revoke the energy bill?
Well, now Alfonso Romo has said
that… ‘look guys, this was not so bad.
At the end of the day, we will just renegociate the contracts with
foreign companies but they can stay in the country, right?
We really looooove business.
Really!’
AMLO changed his mind and now he sais yes to energy openness… according to Alfonso
Romo
But there is still a lot more last minute moderation!
Look, AMLO is from a region called TABASCO.
And
there, there is a famous kind of fish called PEJE *PRONOUNCED LIKE ‘PECHE’ IN CZECH*.
This is why, some
people nickname him as THE PEJE.
So now, in order to give the impression that he will not nationalize
companies, nor rise taxes or expropriate properties on a Venezuelan fashion, he has launched a
brand new
economic agenda called…
PEJENOMICS.
Isn’t it a catchy title?
But… as you know money is no big fan of risks and experiments.
And, with or without flashy names and
mixed signals, the Mexican businessmen don’t really trust AMLO.
This is why, while elections are getting
closer and closer, Mexican inteligentia has already found their candidate.
Don’t forget that Mexico,
unlike other countries like France, has no second round on the presidential elections.
This means that,
the one with the biggest share of voters on July the 1st will become the president.
This is why, it seems
that the big antagonist to AMLO is going to be this the conservative candidate, whose
name is RICARDO
ANAYA.
The Mexican business elite will support ANAYA in order to stop LOPEZ OBRADOR
Being 39 years old, ANAYA is the youngest candidate on this elections.
He is been accused of money
laundering.
But, despite what it looks, this hasn’t hurt him during the campaign.
In fact, the opposite
is true.
People believe that this was just a dirty deed from the PRI to disqualify him.
So he is gaining
momentum on the polls… although, he still has a long way to surpass AMLO.
SO now the big question is…
Do you believe AMLO will become the next Mexican president or maybe ANAYA
will challenge him?
Is AMLO a risk for Mexico or… it is hard to do worse than the previous presidents?
Please, leave your answers on the comment section below.
Also don’t forget to visit our friends from
RECONSIDER MEDIA.COM, the podcast that provided the vocals in this episode that we not mine.
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