Lopez Obrador Reaches Out to Mexican Ruling Elite - with Unconditional Amnesty Don Knowland - WSWS.org
go to original August 20, 2016

Andrés Manuel Lopez Obrador of Mexico’s bourgeois liberal National Regeneration Party (MORENA) last week brightly displayed his class stripes in guaranteeing unconditional amnesty to all those in power if he is elected President of Mexico in 2018.

At a conference on August 11, Lopez Obrador assured “the members of the group in power, despite the great damage they have caused the people and the nation, we bear them no ill will and we assure them, before their possible election defeat in 2018, that there will be no reprisals or persecution of anyone. We declare this anticipated amnesty because what is needed is justice, not vengeance.”

This offer clearly extends beyond the every-day cronyism and corruption, such as that involving payment for the Mexico City mansion of President Enrique Peña Nieto’s wife, and the award, of a lucrative contract to build a high speed rail line to one of Nieto’s cronies, but also to involvement of government officials in brutal acts of violence and their coverup, such as the disappearance and likely murder by the army and police of the Ayotzinapa 43 teaching students in September 2014 in Guerrero state, and the recent shooting by federal police of protesting teachers at Nochixtlán in Oaxaca state.

There will be no investigations or prosecutions of such criminal activity. This from the politico whose main political plank consists of decrying the corruption he describes as a “mafia in power” dedicated to plundering Mexico, and promising an end to impunity for such misconduct.

Andrés Manuel Lopez Obrador stressed that his movement is not against those who “commit to invest, create jobs, earn legitimate profits, and to the development of Mexico,” but rather only to those who “amass great fortunes overnight - supported by illegality, and influence peddling - in the shadow of public power.”

This is a clear signal to longstanding Mexican billionaires such as Carlos Slim Helú, the world’s second richest man, and Emilio Azcárraga Jean, the Mexican media magnate, that their domination of Mexico will continue on unimpeded.

In fact, Lopez Obrador is viewed by sections of the Mexican financial elite as a Mexican Bernie Sanders: The most viable means to contain the Mexican masses should they step up their rejection of a capitalist system that is sucking them dry.

Read the rest at WSWS.org

Photo: La Otra Opinion

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