Against All Odds: López Obrador, President of Mexico

The fraud intents, neither the fear campaign, nor the killing of political leaders could prevent him as in the two previous elections that the left-wing leader Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) were elected President in the general elections of last Sunday in Mexico.

Before making official the results – to be known next Wednesday 4^th - and only ten minutes after the closing of the voting, something unusual happened: the official candidate, José Antonio Meade, from the Institutional Revolutionary Party (IRP), admitted that the results didn't favor him. The opposite happened to López Obrador who within a long period of five months will begin his office, which will extend up to 2024.

Something similar did Ricardo Anaya later, candidate for the conservative National Action Party (NAP) who finished second, and the independent Jaime Heliodoro Rodríguez, a.k.a. El Bronco.

Nevertheless, AMLO waited for the results shown by the trends that assured him the victory to proclaim it, and he celebrated before dozens of thousands of followers in El Zocalo Theater of the capital, after the headquarters of his electoral campaign expressed they will mainly fight corruption, because this was the root of all other evils, they would address all of them, mainly to the indigenous peoples of Mexico.

Although the voting is incomplete, it assured López Obrador’s victory who always supported non-violence elections and that cooperate to the necessary national understanding, which includes fighting corruption.

He thanked the attitude of president Peña Nieto in this elections, as well as the press which before was characterized as an open war against him. “I want to go down into history as a good President of Mexico and praise the greatness of our Homeland”, he said.

Off the record the 63,8% of voters participated. AMLO obtained 53,89% of votes; Anaya, 22,8%; Meade, 16,3%, and El Bronco, 5,5%.

The victory has greater impact because not for an instant has stopped the political violence and the forced disappearance, with regrettable outcome, among other things, 133 political killings, even in the voting day, when armed groups even stole several urns.

The National Electoral Institute, nevertheless, affirmed that only 14 electoral colleges could not open, it mentioned the transparency of elections that presented facts like the late opening of colleges and the gathering of voters in front of them; the debatable determination that houses could act as electoral colleges; the overtly buying of votes by members of the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party to residents from the poorest neighborhoods, the protests of several citizens who could not vote due to shortage of electoral material.

In general, not only the presidency was at stake, but also the positions of 128 senators, 500 deputies, and the local authorities, among them eight governors, 972 delegations, 1 596 city councils, 184 municipal boards and 16 mayoralties, among them that of the capital, Mexico City.

These results will eventually go public, and they are key for the good performance of the Board, although it transcended that AMLO’s followers control most of it.

AMLO’s DEVELOPMENT PLAN

In an interview granted in Axtla de Terrazas, Andrés Manuel López Obrador advanced that the new Plan for Development 2018-2024 was elaborated by 200 experts, among professionals from all sectors, academics, managers, intellectuals and members of the civil society who have worked for months.

He clarified that most of those who elaborated the plan are not militant of the National Regeneration Movement (MORENA for its acronym in Spanish), although they do belong to the other group Together we’ll Make History, but they accepted and he invited citizens to know on Monday November 20^th the details of the plan.

About the negotiation of the Free Trade Treaty, Andrés Manuel López Obrador considered that the Mexican government has to diversify the foreign commerce, “not putting all eggs in one basket, we need to diversify our international relationships, but without submission to anyone”, he added.

The president of the National Executive Committee of MORENA proposed that they have to seek commercial relationships and of cooperation for development with all countries of the world, to keep the relationship with the United States and attempt to keep the Free Trade Treaty.

On the other hand, López Obrador informed that the MORENA’s candidates don't have prior criminal records, he manifested that communities will be protected, the destruction of the territory, and the contamination of waters, won't be allowed and the environment will be protected.

He made a commitment that no foreign company will come to step on the dignity of Mexicans.

About his project on security, López Obrador indicated that first there should be some work done, attention to the youths and well-being so to attain that security.

López Obrador said that “we have to come together to achieve the domestic transformation”, and he informed that his commitment is “to end corruption in the country and I will keep all my promises as I did as Chief of Government of Mexico City, and for that reason the people in Mexico City keep supporting me.”

He added that in the last two elections, MORENA has been the party with more votes in Mexico City and “it’s precisely as they know me, they know I keep my promises.”

This is part of the commitments of AMLO, a man who is making history in the needed Mexico. We will have to keep writing about him.

Cubasi Translation Staff / Amilkal Labañino Valdés