Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 20:27, 2 April 2005

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, 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 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 Consumers' Institute), a government agency.

Although he worked for a time for Tabasco governor Enrique González Pedrero, López 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 governorship (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 whom 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 time 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 USD $5,600 a month he had to justify by 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; unlike Chávez's cadenas, however, the broadcast media can choose whether or not to cover López Obrador's press conferences, and so the comparison is dismissed as spurious by neutral observers.

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 is 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); his detractors, however, compare him to Venezuela's Hugo Chávez, which is curious considering that he has never been a member of the military and has never led a coup d'état.

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 Histórico, 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 Histórico, 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 aging metro system are not 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, Nevada, USA. 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 Federal District's attorney general revealed that more than USD $3 million 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 on 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 fled he signed Ponce's leave in his absence. Ponce disappeared, amid heavy criticism to his government for not placing him in custody immediately. At first AMLO did not judge 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 Treasury Department detailing an ongoing investigation of Ponce for possible financial crimes. These documents, obtained from the Mexican government by Federal District Attorney General 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 USD $320,000 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 Ímaz, 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 USD $5,600 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 MXN $6 million (around USD $550,000) from government funds.

Desafuero process of 2004-2005

The 111th article of the Mexican Constitution states most high-level elected officials can not be prosecuted for criminal offenses while in office withouth a simple majority vote of the Chamber of Deputies stating there are grounds for prosecution. This privilege is usually confused with the freedom of speech protection granted to congressmen by the 61th article, known as fuero, literally, "outsideness"; the process to strip it is known as desafuero. Since immunity from prosecution is almost universally confused with the fuero, both terms will be used interchangeably.

If the Chamber of Deputies votes in the negative, the prosecution can take place when the official leaves his post, as deputies don't vote on the accusation itself but only on whether there is reasonably belief a crime was comitted.

A mexican under criminal prosecution has his political rights suspended (38th article) so he can't run for office or hold one, at least temporarily. All candidates for presidency in 2006 must register no later than January 15, 2006.

López Obrador runs exactly this risk. In 2001, his government expropriated a patch of land to build an access road for an hospital. The affected owner of a patch of land called "El Encino" sued the government and was granted in 2003 a federal judicial order barring further construction until the matter was definitively settled. According to prosecutors, López Obrador knowingly disregarded several times this order, a criminal offense. While government construction projects in Mexico usually experience such problems, it was not until recent times the land owners could win a decision against the government, as the courts usually sided with it, so the case covers unknown ground.

The court that granted the order ignored by AMLO requested the federal attorney general to take the necessary steps to bring him into compliance. The federal attorney general has no option but to proceed by asking the removal of AMLO's immunity, otherwise he would be breaking the law. Despite all of this, it is very difficult to believe there isn't a political motivation behind a process that could prevent the most popular presumed candidate to run in the presidential elections in 2006.

The process took several months, and by early 2005 there was an upsurge of popular support for AMLO and opposition to the desafuero; by March 2005, posters declaring "No al desafuero" or similar slogans, promoted by AMLO, were commonly seen in Mexico City, and several grassroots movements were considering their options for demonstrating their support for López Obrador.

A civilian association was founded, "No nos vamos a dejar" (We won't let that happen), headed by Alejandro Encinas, his Secretary, and joined by several PRD and government members, making an aggressive funding and media campaign, spending MXN $5 million (USD $440,000) in March 2005 only, with other $5 million more available, as Encinas declared in April 2005. The association funding methods have been questioned, with rising accusations of reprisal against government employees who didn't participate, and a documented incident of deviation of government funds by local representatives who had to give the money back. The association has announced they will detail the origin of the funds in the near future.

AMLO's party, the PRD, is expected to launch a similar campaign, mainly by comparing AMLO's prosecution with that of killings attributed to previous governments (1968, 1971) and financial scandals (1994-1995) where almost no convictions were made, and emphasizing his status as leader in the polls.

Despite this vigorous defense, the process has gone on and López Obrador lost the first battle in a restricted vote by a comission of four deputies on April 1, 2005, opening the door for the full Chamber of Deputies to vote some weeks later to remove his immunity after hearing both his and the prosecution arguments. This restricted vote by the comission, originally scheduled two days earlier, decided there was a reasonable belief a crime was committed 3 votes against 1. Media coverage of this event was small, because of the impending demise of Pope John Paul II (he died the next day). This prompted López Obrador to express (hours before the Pope died) his concerns about what he saw as minimal coverage of his desafuero process, but "hours and hours" of special coverage on the Pope's health condition. "(The media only said that) López Obrador lost three to one, as if it were a soccer match", he said, expressing his fears of a return to a time where the media, specially television, was subordinated to the government.

He will be prosecuted whenever he loses his immunity (either from the desafuero or by stepping down from his jefe de gobierno post to run for the presidency). When that happens, he will have to be cleared of all charges before January 15, 2005 if he wishes to run for presidency. López Obrador has declared several times he will forgo his right to remain free until a verdict is given, going to prison when the prosecution starts and campaigning from there. His party is already considering changing is statutes to allow him to become candidate while jailed. Protests are expected, most in Mexico City, as him and his party are less popular in other parts of the country.

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