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Andrés Manuel López Obrador (b. 13 November 1953) is a Mexican politician. He was the Head of Government (Jefe de Gobierno) of the Federal District (commonly called the "mayor of Mexico City" in the English-language press) from 2000 to 2005. He was stripped of immunity from prosecution in April 2005 by the Chamber of Deputies in order for him to face criminal charges that he allowed the building of an entrance road to a city hospital to continue, in defiance of a court order. After hundreds of thousands of people marched through Mexico City in his support, the Attorney General's office (called Procuraduría General de la República) dropped the case because the punishment for such an offence was unclear (see the desafuero section of this article). His arrest would have seriously compromised his presidential aspirations for 2006, for which he quit his post on July 29 2005. 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.

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, Andrés Manuel 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. He led the PRD from the 2 August 1996 until 10 April 1999.

Desafuero process of 2004-2005

This process was originated by a land owner who sued the Federal District's government on the grounds of improper expropriation of a patch of land called El Encino. This case detonated of López Obrador hands on 2005, when a vote by the Chamber of Deputies lifted his constitutional immunity against criminal charges. When he is officially charged, he will lose all his civil rights, including running for Presidency in 2006, unless he is either quickly acquitted of all charges or serves his sentence before the registration deadline. On April 27, 2005, President Fox announced changes in his cabinet, a reevaluation of the legal case against AMLO and legal changes so civil rights are only suspended until a citizen is found guilty. Fox and López will met on the first week of May, 2005, as part of the efforts to heal the political climate. The new General Attorney found a way to avoid prosecuting López, but it depends on the approval on the private company that first sued him.

El Encino case

López Obrador runs exactly this risk. On November 9, 2000, Rosario Robles, his predecessor, expropriated a patch of land from a larger property called "El Encino", in Santa Fe, Cuajimalpa, to build an access road for a private hospital. The owner sued the government on March 11, 2001, and was granted a federal judicial order barring further construction until the matter was definitively settled, as it prevented the owner access his own property. According to prosecutors, López Obrador knowingly disregarded this order several times, a minor criminal offense. By August, the judge found the works continued, so he requested the federal attorney general to make an inquiry and take the necessary steps to bring him into compliance. The federal attorney general had no option but to proceed. Several months passed, partly because until recent times the courts usually sided with the government in expropriation cases and therefore the case covers unknown ground, and partly because it was such an extraordinary step. By May 17, 2004, the federal general attorney could not keep procrastinating (otherwise he would be prosecuted) and announced he would request the removal of AMLO's immunity, which he did two days later. Many months of mutual accusations later, it became clear 2005 would be a pivotal year for the case.

He will be formally prosecuted in a matter of days after losing his immunity. When that happens, he will have to be cleared of all charges preferably before January 15, 2006 if he wishes to run for presidency (although law allows candidate changes until May). López Obrador has declared several times he will forgo all legal means available to him to remain free until a verdict is given, going to prison when the prosecution starts and campaigning from there. He also stated he will be his own lawyer at his criminal trial (his studies are in political science and public administration) although he will receive legal advice from two different lawyers. His party is already considering changing its statutes to allow him to become candidate while jailed. Protests are expected, mostly in Mexico City and some of the more rural states, as he and his party are less popular in other parts of the country.

As part of his campaign before the Chamber of Deputies' vote, he's organizing mass concentrations in public places to pressure the vote in his favor and doing media interviews comparing his process with those held against Mexican revolutionary Madero or civil rights activist Martin Luther King, insisting it is a conspiracy masterminded by ex-President Salinas and President Fox.

A fact that was lost despite having appeared earlier in official documents was that, apparently, López Obrador refused to follow the judicial order barring further construction of accesses to the ABC Hospital because he was sued by them and would have to pay USD 37 million if accesses weren't finished before the deadline. Apparently his government sold land to construct the hospital but for some reason, in agreement with the hospital, such land was exchanged for another. The new land had no accesses, making it useless; the hospital sued AMLO's government. It is unknown at this moment if AMLO's government committed a financial offense in regard to this.

The Chamber of Deputies vote

Despite his vigorous defense, the process couldn't be stopped and López Obrador lost the first battle in a restricted vote by a commission of four deputies on April 1, 2005, opening the door for the full Chamber of Deputies to vote six days later to remove his immunity after hearing both his and the prosecution's arguments. This restricted vote by the commission, originally scheduled two days earlier, decided there was a reasonable belief a crime was committed by three votes to one. Media coverage of the preliminary vote 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.

On April 7 2005 López Obrador went to the Chamber of Deputies to present his case. Attendance when the session began was reported to be 488 out of 500 deputies, but apparently one of the deputies arrived late to vote. After a long session where AMLO accused President Fox of being behind the process, the Chamber of Deputies voted by 360 to 127 (with two abstentions) to lift AMLO's constitutional immunity against prosecution. A secondary law states that in cases like this, he is immediately dismissed from his office. The local assembly of representatives (the Federal District has no Congress as its status is somewhere between a state and a county), with a majority of PRD members (AMLO's party) has refused to acknowledge the validity of this process. This will be relevant to the city's future, as they are the ones legally entitled to name AMLO's successor.

Political reactions

There were political reactions both against and in favour of the process from early 2004, climaxing in April 2005 when López Obrador saw his constitutional immunity lifted.

By early 2005 AMLO promoted different forms of protest against the desafuero: posters declaring "No al desafuero" or similar slogans, seen mostly in March, making a census of political and grassroots movements willing to show their support for López Obrador, different political acts by his party, the PRD. The federal government, for its part, reiterated officials can't be exempted from following the law.

A civil society organization, No nos vamos a dejar ("We won't let that happen"), was founded, 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 accusations of reprisal against government employees who didn't participate by either accepting a deduction of their paychecks or providing a "voluntary" donation, and a documented incident of deviation of government funds by local representatives who had to give the money back. The association hasn't detailed the origin of their funds yet.

AMLO's party, the PRD, has committed itself to support him, and to some extent, his presidential candidacy.

His media strategy is to compare his prosecution with that of killings attributed to previous governments (1968, 1971) and financial scandals (1994-1995) where almost no convictions were made (but heavy fines applied in most of the later), and emphasizing his status as leader in the polls. He also compared himself with Francisco I. Madero, a political candidate in 1910 who was imprisoned by dictator Porfirio Díaz and eventually became leader of the revolution and the next president. He also has compared himself with international civil rights activists who suffered prison at some moment of their life.

He also claims his process to be a political plot orchestrated by, among other top politicians, former president Carlos Salinas de Gortari, current President Fox, and presidential pre-candidate Santiago Creel.

To address fears of his political defense becoming a violent movement, fueled by his violent manifestations and takeover of the Governor's Office when he said he had been victim of fraud in the elections in Tabasco, he has called several times for a "peaceful movement".

The Aftermath

The loss of his constitutional immunity proved to be only the beginning of what seems poised to be a long legal and political struggle. Aside from the political power at risk, the untested legal Mexican system has shown deficiencies which will further prolong controversies.

After the Deputies' vote, the Asamblea Legislativa del Distrito Federal rose a constitutional controversy against them claiming it was they who should have voted since they are similar to a state Congress. (The Federal District isn't a state). The Deputies' filed their own complaint, and both were accepted by the Supreme Court. Currently both are in effect, so AMLO is and is not Head of Government.

When a judge knew about the charges two local deputies of the PAN official party paid a guarantee to keep AMLO away from jail. The judge rejected later both the charges and the guarantee on technical grounds. AMLO called the guarantee a 'cowardly act', as he wants to be imprisoned.

On April 24 a march called by AMLO was attended by an official estimate of 1.2 million people (as estimated by the Federal District government´s Secretary of Public Security). This figure includes union and government workers. The march culminated on the Zócalo, in the center of the city, attendants either expressing their solidarity to Andrés Manuel or their disapproval to the desafuero process. This was probably the most attended political event in recent times, and comparable to the apolitical march against crime held two years before.

On April 27, 2005, President Fox announced changes in his cabinet, a reevaluation of the legal case against AMLO and legal changes so civil rights are only suspended until a citizen is found guilty. In his eight-minute speech to the Nation, he called AMLO "Head of Government", forgetting controversies about whether he was sacked from office or not, and placed great emphasis on the importance of having suspicion-free elections on 2006. This is an important victory to AMLO, but it is still too early to say the case is closed.

On May 4, 2005 the Attorney General's office announced they would drop contempt charges against AMLO on a technicality: they declared he was guilty but his unique post as Head of Government (neither governor nor mayor) makes it unclear a penalty for his crime exists due to the wording of the relevant article. This announcement was refuted by penalists, since the Attorney General can't declare guilt nor innocence, even less interpret the law; they can't drop charges due to the nature of the offense and because charges were pressed by a private company, which has stated will follow the suit. Even if López can't be punished for a technicality (a controversial issue in itself) he could still be found guilty and subject to other penalties. Even more, under current law, López would be prevented from running for office for as long as he is subject to process, and when he resigns to run for presidency he will find himself a common citizen which could be subject to process at any moment, losing his political rights.

Publications

Unless otherwise noted, in Spanish and published in Mexico.

• 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)
• Un proyecto alternativo de nación (An alternate nation project) ISBN 685956979
• Contra el desafuero: mi defensa jurídica (Against the lifting of executive immunity: my legal defense) ISBN 9685957908

See also

• Mexican general election, 2006

External links

• Official site of Andrés Manuel López Obrador
• Mexico mayor runs into the buffers (BBC News)
• Greetings from Mexistan (Washington Post opinion column)
• Support site against the desafuero process
• Authors Elena Poniatowska and Paco Ignacio Taibo describe Obrador's magnetism on Democracy Now! program
• 'Crónica' newspaper article revealing López uses USD7,800 watches and luxury clothes. (in Spanish)
• El Universal: Zapatista leader blasts AMLO (in Spanish).

• 1953 births
• Mexican politicians
• UNAM alumni