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Andrés Manuel López Obrador (b. 1953) has been the Head of Government ("Jefe de Gobierno", with a status somewhere between a city mayor and a state governor) of Mexico's Federal District (Mexico City) since the year 2000. López Obrador was previously the president of the Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI) in his home state of Tabasco and the president of the Partido de la Revolución Democrática (PRD) at the state and national levels. He is considered likely to run for president of Mexico in the 2006 elections.

In the media, López Obrador is frequently referred to by his initials AMLO and as el Peje an abbreviation of pejelagarto, a species of fish from the Lepisosteidae family, found in Tabasco.

Background

Born in the small town of Tepetitán, Macuspana municipality, in Tabasco state, López Obrador became interested in politics at an early age. He studied political science and public administration at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) before officially joining the PRI and collaborating actively in Carlos Pellicer's campaign for the governorship of Tabasco.

In 1977 he was selected to head the Instituto Indigenista (Indigenous People's Institute) of his state, where he promoted the publication of Native American literature. In 1984 he relocated to Mexico City to work at the Instituto Nacional del Consumidor (National Institute for the Consumer), a government agency.

Although he worked for a time for Tabasco governor Enrique González Pedrero, Obrador resigned over political differences to join the new dissenting wing of the PRI led by Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas, which would later be transformed into an independent party, the PRD. He ran for office in Tabasco in 1988 under this new banner.

After losing that election, López Obrador served as PRD president in Tabasco until 1994, when, after losing a bid for the Tabasco state house (to the PRI, in a highly disputed election) he launched a run for the head office of his party. Obrador led the PRD from the 2 August 1996 until 10 April 1999.

Jefe de Gobierno of Mexico City

On 29 March 2000, he entered the Federal District's jefe de gobierno race. His candidacy was contested by political opponents who claimed he was not really a resident of the capital city, but the allegations did not hold, and López Obrador proved popular amongst the working classes of the city, many of which are migrants from other parts of Mexico. This, combined with support from social democrats in the middle classes, vitalized by what they saw as the first real left of center candidate in Mexican politics for a long time, assured his solid victory in the elections in the summer of 2000, with 38.3% of the popular vote. He defeated Santiago Creel of the PAN (33.4%), Jesús Silva Herzog of the PRI (22.8%), and a couple of other minor-party candidates.

Public image

During his career as Head of Government, López Obrador has become one of the most recognizable and popular politicians in Mexico, although he has been criticized for his populism. His past as a distinguished member of the PRI for many years, and his more recent acts against the government after he joined the PRD, for instance in closing oil ducts to pressure Pemex, the national oil monopoly, to pay farmers who claimed their land was contaminated, have made him unpopular or controversial in many political circles. Like most left-populist politicians in Latin America, López Obrador appeals to the large lower and lower middle classes, which make up the overwhelming majority of the population, but have considerably less influence in traditional politics and the media.

His public image is also one of frugality and moderation. He owns an old car, driven by Nicolás Mollinedo Bastar (whose high salary of 5,600 US dollars a month he had to justify explaining he was not only his chauffeur as everyone thought but also his Coordinator of Logistics), has a discreet female-only group of bodyguards in civilian clothes, and insists on maintaining a running dialogue with the media, holding daily morning press conferences about the agenda of the district's government, and current events in the city. Opponents have claimed the press conferences are simply an excuse to get more publicity and media attention, and compared them to Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez's weekly TV broadcasts.

He is generally well liked by the citizens of Mexico City, and was voted the second-best mayor in the world by Mexicans at the ATA online poll in www.citymayors.com. Therefore, he is widely seen as the PRD's de facto candidate for the 2006 presidential elections, and until 2005 he denied having made up his mind regarding a presidential bid. As it became clear there was the possibility of a legal impediment to run for office (see Desafuero section) he publicly declared he would only support a different candidate for his party if he had a real chance of winning the election and not only a 15% of the votes (this percentage roughly that obtained by runner-up PRD precandidate Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas in his previous runs for presidency). Should he run, he's considered one of the favourites, partly because both the two other main Mexican parties having had problems coming up with a viable and popular presidential candidate so far.

Some of López Obrador's supporters for the presidency consider him to be Mexico's equivalent to the other new left-populist presidents in Latin America, such as Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (Brazil), Néstor Kirchner (Argentina), and Tabaré Vázquez (Uruguay), while his detractors compare him to Hugo Chávez (Venezuela).

Political agenda

His leadership of the city government has been one focused on social issues. Under the slogan First, the poor, he has instituted various social programs to help those living in abject poverty, including various subsidies for senior citizens. He is, in general, against raising taxes and the cost of city services, obtaining funds from debt and austerity plans in spending.

He has also reformed the city's police force, leading to a reduction in the previously rampant corruption. Possibly as a result, the city's crime rates are on the decline. Another highly visible project has been the restoration and modernization of Mexico City's old city center, the Centro Historico, which has 16th-17th century buildings and a large number of tourist attractions, yet has been badly maintained, overcrowded, and crime-ridden in the last few decades. The Mexico City government entered into a joint venture with Carlos Slim, Latin America's richest man, and a native of the Centro Historico, to restore and rebuild large parts of the area, creating attractive new shopping and residential areas.

In an effort to improve the city's traffic conditions, a widely cited problem, his government embarked in 2003 on a number of large construction projects, aiming to increase the capacity and speed of the city's main throughfares, by constructing rapid-transit upper levels and extensions. Despite being controversial while in construction, the projects have led to a noticeable improvement in travel times in the city, and more projects along the same lines are underway, or in planning. Improvements to the aged subway system aren't expected, however.

Controversy and criticism

In 2004, AMLO's city government was rocked by two major corruption scandals.

In the first, Gustavo Ponce, Lopez Obrador’s finance chief, was filmed gambling at the Bellagio Hotel in Las Vegas. He had made 37 similar trips in the last year, his hotel bills revealing huge tips and mini-bar room charges. After Ponce was exposed in the media, a probe by the Attorney General of Mexico City revealed that more than 3 million dollars in city funds may have gone missing. López Obrador reacted slowly and unconvingly: having received a phone call warning him of an impending scandal, he watched Ponce's gambling in the nightly news. He inmediately called Ponce by the phone, and Ponce reassured AMLO it was only a confusion and he would explain it to the press tomorrow morning. López Obrador arrived next day to his morning conference and waited for Ponce to go together to meet the press; when it was obvious Ponce had fleed he signed Ponce's leave in his absence. Ponce disappeared, amid heavy criticism to his government for not placing him in custody inmediately. At first AMLO didn't judged Ponce, only saying Ponce owed an explanation for his behaviour. When a probe revealed missing funds, he said the scandal was part of a conspiration by his political enemies, as it is incredibly hard to make an unauthorized filming inside a casino and obtain a guest's bills, and the videotapes seemed to be from the security closed circuit. After some time he expressed his concern Ponce was dead, killed so the truth about the scandal would never come to light. When Ponce was caught hiding in Mexico several months later, he expressed his relief at knowing he was still alive. Some time after his capture, and remembering his conspiracy theory, AMLO presented to the press confidential documents of the United States Department of Treasury detailing an ongoing investigation of Ponce for possible financial crimes. These documents, obtained from the mexican government by his General Attorney, Bátiz, under the pretext they were needed for the probe, showed, in AMLO's eyes, a conspiracy from the federal government against him, since they knew before the scandal something was wrong with Ponce. Both the Mexican and United States government reacted harshly to this violation of the cooperation agreement among the policies of both countries.

The second scandal came when René Bejarano, previously López Obrador's personal secretary, later elected to the Mexico City legislature, was videotaped accepting 320,000 dollars in cash. Bejarano claimed that the money, which was given to him by Carlos Ahumada, a newspaper owner and city contractor, was a cash contribution for the political campaign of Leticia Robles, a city borough leader. Robles denied involvement in any illegal campaign financing. In this case, too, López Obrador failed to quickly distance himself from the scandal, placing the blame on a conspiracy by Carlos Ahumada and his political opponents (like ex-president Carlos Salinas), remaining silent about Bejarano. As more videotapes were released, AMLO found it difficult to not say anything about Bejarano's involvement and after a few months he declared he had done something inappropiate. Carlos Ahumada, who fled to Cuba to avoid prosecution, was captured by the cuban government and held in custody, incommunicated, for some weeks before being deported to Mexico. Ahumada says he videotaped the encounters for his own safety as he felt threatened by Bejarano's cash requests, and released them as a desperate measure when his contracts with the city government were canceled. He also gave money to PRD's Carlos Imaz, who was introduced to Ahumada by Rosario Robles, AMLO's predecessor.

Despite the involvement of his collaborators, reacting slowly to the scandals and his stubborn insistence on placing the blame on his political enemies only, there's no evidence AMLO knew or participated in anything illegal, so he emerged from the scandals with his public image relatively unscathed.

A less damaging scandal ocurred when it was found his chaffeur, Nicolás Mollinedo Bastar, earned 5,600 US dollars a month. AMLO explained he worked at his Coordinator of Logistics, and as such it was part of his duties to drive his car.

In July 2004, after a spat of kidnappings of celebrities throughout Mexico (although few of them actually in the city), many non-governmental organizations called for a march in the city to protest the perceived high levels of crime. López Obrador criticized the march for being politicized, and referred to the reduced crime statistics in the city during his rule. Estimates place attendance at the march at between 200,000 and one million people.

Both before and after the march, the city government distributed a series of comics, called Tales of the City to combat perceived media attacks on the government and López Obrador. The issue released after the July march hinted to the march being organized and attended mostly by upper-class citizens, and drew criticism from the march's organizers. The comic has also been criticised because it openly promoted López Obrador image, and cost more than $6 million pesos (around 550,000 US Dollars) from government funds.

Desafuero process of 2004-2005

All elected officials in Mexico are given immunity from prosecution while in office, a privilege known as the fuero, literally, outsideness. However, the privilege can be revoked at any time by vote in Congress. This is known as the desafuero, and in addition to removing actual immunity, it also revokes the right to run for or hold political office.

López Obrador runs exactly this risk. In 2003, during the construction of an access road to a Mexico City hospital, López Obrador's government disregarded a federal judicial order barring expopriation of land to build the road. This is not an uncommon occurrence; almost all government construction projects in Mexico experience such problems, and they are usually settled by negotiation of the exact area of land expropriated and the size of the compensation.

However, in what many see as a political move, Mexico's attorney general, appointed by president Fox of the ruling PAN party, has asked congress to remove López Obrador's immunity, so that he can be prosecuted for disregarding a judicial order, in the process making it illegal for the most popular presumed candidate to run in the presidential elections in 2006.

Early 2005 saw an upsurge of popular support for AMLO, and opposition to the desafuero; in March 2005, posters declaring "No al desafuero" or similar slogans were commonly seen in Mexico City, and several grassroots movements were considering their options for demonstrating their support for López Obrador.

A civil association, "No nos vamos a dejar", headed by Alejandro Encinas, his Secretary, and joined by several PRD and government members, has made an aggressive funding and media campaign, spending five million pesos (around 440,000 US dollars) in March, 2005, with more to follow.

Although he has vigorously defended himself, the process has gone on and López Obrador lost the first battle in a restricted vote in Congress on April, 1, 2005, opening the door for the full Congress to vote some weeks later to remove his immunity.

Publications

• Los Primeros Pasos (First Steps)
• Del Esplendor a la Sombra (From Splendor to Darkness)
• Tabasco, Víctima de un Fraude (Tabasco, Victim of Fraud)
• Entre la Historia y la Esperanza (Between History and Hope)

External Links

• Support site, against the desafuero process

• 1953 births
• Mexican politicians