Who Spooks Mexico's Elites More: Donald Trump or Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador? David Agren - Americas Quarterly
go to original November 2, 2016

Mexico's own populist contender, Andrés Manuel López Obrador (L), is an early front-runner for 2018 presidential elections (Gage Skidmore/Eneas de Troya/Wikicommons)

When Donald Trump says he might not accept the result of the U.S. presidential election on November 8 (unless he wins), listeners in Mexico can be forgiven for thinking the claim sounds familiar: their own populist presidential contender, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, has twice refused to accept defeat in national elections.

The similarity is not lost on Mexican political observers. No sooner had Trump made the remark at a debate in October than Twitter lit up with caustic comments and memes of the two men, including some showing Trump and López Obrador morphing into the same person, all while “AMLO y Trump” trended on Twitter.

“Why, having distinct ideologies, do Trump and AMLO (as López Obrador is known) sound the same? Because they share a messianic narrative and say they’re confronting malevolent powers,” tweeted Fernando Belaunzarán, a politician and member of López Obrador’s former Democratic Revolution Party (PRD).

Though Trump’s rise stirs disquiet in Mexico - he has threatened to fence of the frontier and roll back two decades of economic integration with the United States, for a start - many in the country’s political class find it hard to attack him without also taking a shots at AMLO, a politician whom elites have previously compared to Venezuela’s late former President Hugo Chávez and branded “a danger for Mexico.”

AMLO has been a fixture on the Mexican political left for more than two decades, rising to national prominence as the head of government in Mexico City in the early 2000s. He is known for protests such as blocking Pemex facilities in the state of Tabasco over pollution and (most notoriously) beckoning supporters to the streets of the capital for a six-week blockade after narrowly losing the 2006 presidential election. He later declared himself “legitimate president” in an act of political theatre.

Read the rest at Americas Quarterly

Related: Trump's Fraud Accusations May Hurt His Endgame – Just Ask Mexico (The Conversation)

Related: Leftist-Leader Manuel Lopez Obrador Proposes Free Zone Instead of Trump's Wall (Prensa Latina)

Related: Mexican Journalist Carmen Aristegui Addresses Political Situation in Mexico (Daily Texan Online)

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