Favorite for Mexican Presidency Vows to Cancel $13B International Airport GCR
go to original May 4, 2017

MORENA's Andrés Manuel López Obrador (YouTube)

Andrés Manuel López Obrador has reiterated his campaign pledge to cancel construction of the $13bn international airport that is the flagship project of the government of Enrique Peña Nieto.

Obrador repeated his promise at a campaign rally in Mexico State this week. He said the scheme was being built on the wrong site – a dry lake bed – and that it was plagued by corruption.

The leader of the Movement for National Regeneration, or Morena, said: “This airport being built in Texcoco is not technically feasible; it’s going to sink. When Morena wins the election we’re going to cancel this massive project and put an end to the corruption that surrounds it. We’re going to use the money to create jobs and boost education for our youth.”

He added that major contracts were being awarded to people who had links with the governing party of Peña Nieto, and that as a result the “pharaonic” airport was “the scam of the century”.



Obrador, who is better known by his nickname AMLO, was head of Mexico City council from 2000 to 2006 and ran for president in 2006 and 2012. According to polls published in El Universal newspaper last month, Obrador is on 33%, six points ahead of Margarita Zavala, the wife of former president Felipe Calderon.

He has run a campaign based on tackling inequality and corruption, and has also stressed immigrants’ rights, thereby benefiting from a wave of opposition to the anti-immigration policies of Donald Trump.

Read the rest at GCR

Related: What to Watch for in Mexico's Upcoming Election (Forbes)

Related: Can Andrés Manuel López Obrador and MORENA Unite the Mexican Left and Forge a Citizens’ Revolution Ahead of the 2018 Presidential Election? (NACLA)

Related: Looking Back to the Anti-AMLO Political Discourse, His “Populism” Has Been Attacked in the Past (The News)

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