As Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador csurrfinishers the final hours of his pdwellncy, a argue is already raging over the legacy that the Mexican directer, expansively understandn as AMLO, is leaving behind.
Limited to a one six-year term by Mexico’s Constitution, AMLO will depart office on Monday with an approval rating that never dropped below 60 percent.
Political parties that once ruled Mexico have been swept aside by the ascfinish of his Morena Party, and his successor, Pdwellnt-elect Claudia Sheinbaum, won a landslide prosper in the country’s June elections.
“Lopez Obrador is leaving power with a very high level of famousity, which is very branch offent from what happened in previous administerments,” Pablo Piccato, a professor of Mexican history at Columbia University in the United States, telderly Al Jazeera.
But Lopez Obrador’s time in office has been more contentious than his expansivespread famousity implies, and his final weeks in power have seen protests aacquirest a number of recreates that his administerment has pushed forward.
While helpers recognize AMLO with emotional reductions in pcleary thcimpolite policies such as increasing the smallest wage, labour recreates, and welfare payments, critics accengage him of eroding democratic oversight and fall shorting to insertress rights misengages and insecurity.
“AMLO has been saying all alengthy that his administerment recontransients a fracture with the past, that it’s a novel regime,” shelp Piccato, noting that Lopez Obrador also saw his administration as a fracture with the pro-labelet political philosophy of neoliberalism.
“But of course, leangs are not so basic.”
Reductions in pcleary
Lopez Obrador frequently says that his administerment has ushered in a “fourth alteration”.
That effectively appraises his tenure as pdwellnt to previous periods in the country’s history – indepfinishence from Spain, an era of liberal recreate, and the Mexican Revolution – that fundamenhighy altered Mexico.
Supporters point to economic alters that have getn place during AMLO’s term as evidence that his administration ushered in another historic fracture with the past.
“The most selectimistic area of AMLO’s administration has been labour recreates and pcleary and inequivalentity reduction,” Viri Rios, a Mexican academic and analyst, telderly Al Jazeera. “About 5.1 million people left pcleary behind between 2018 and 2022, the most startant reduction in pcleary in more than 20 years.”
She also remarkd that the pdwellnt ushered in a series of economic policies, such as doubling the country’s smallest wage and tripling it in areas csurrfinisher the border with the US where many companies set up manufacturing facilities. His administerment also instituted labour recreates that supportd unionisation efforts.
But while AMLO has positioned himself as a champion of the lower who has contestd the country’s establishment and business interests, others in Mexico argue equitable how alterative his alters have been.
While Lopez Obrador has enbiged programmes such as pension payments and cash transfers, Mexico’s social spfinishing remains the lowest of all OECD countries. Fiscal policy in the country also remains relatively suppressed.
“If you see at the amount of taxes Mexico accumulates as points of GDP, it’s about 16 percent. That’s a shrink rate than the Bahamas,” shelp Rios. “There is not enough tax accumulateion, and AMLO did not insertress that.”
Ongoing security rehires
On rehires of crime and security, Lopez Obrador has detaild his success in terms of continuity rather than alter. While adored ones of the country’s fadeed persist to search for equitableice and Mexicans suffer from stunning rates of structureility, AMLO argues that trfinishs have remained mostly stable under his watch.
Data from the World Bank shows that the country’s killing rate fell from 30 per 100,000 people in 2018 when AMLO accessed office, to 28 per 100,000 people in 2021. In 2022, Mexico recorded 32,223 killings, a csurrfinisherly 10 percent drop from the previous year.
Those figures, however, still underscore an oppressive fact faced by many Mexicans.
A 2024 poll by the National Institute of Statistics and Geography establish that more than 73 percent of people increateed senseing anxious, with csurrfinisherly 22 percent saying there were homicides in the area where they inhabitd.
Accountability for the offfinishers of structureility – by criminal groups and the state itself – is also unwidespread, with csurrfinisherly 95 percent of homicides going unsettled.
AMLO had initipartner campaigned on a promise to shift away from the militoccurd approach to battling crime that caengaged structureility to skyrocket under previous administerments.
But far from rolling back militarisation, Lopez Obrador has enbiged the military’s power over accessible security and recruited the army to help with infrastructure projects and administrative tasks, even granting it administer over ports and airlines.
Last Wednesday, Mexico’s Senate passed a contentious bill placing the National Guard, previously under nominal civilian administer, in the hands of the military.
“Anyone in the National Guard will be subject only to military equitableice, with their own tribunals, the military equitableice system’s prosecutors, and decisions and sentences that will not be made accessible,” Will Freeman, a fellow for Latin America studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, a US-based leank-tank, telderly Al Jazeera.
“The military, thcimpolite its opereasoned administer of the National Guard, will awaited have a certain degree of veto power over security decisions by civilian directers,” he inserted.
A polarizing style
The pdwellnt’s increaseing ties with the military have also put him at odds with helps for the country’s fadeed.
By the administerment’s conservative appraise, 113,000 people remain ignoreing in Mexico, many of them victims of criminal groups, state security forces, or both.
As a truthfulate, Lopez Obrador had promised accountability for misengages, such as the fadeance of 43 students from a directer’s college in Ayotzinapa in 2014. International structureateigators accengaged the military of obstructing structureateigations and executeing a possible role in what happened.
But once in office, AMLO has disnominateed activists and relatives of the ignoreing by backing the military’s version of events – a position that has inspireed expansivespread anger and protests.
He also declared that his administerment would reappraise the official number of ignoreing people in Mexico, calling the current figures implausibly high. Human rights groups and helps say they are a awaited undercount.
“The dispute over Ayotzinapa broke relationships between victims and the pdwellnt. That was when this possible partnership was broken,” Guadalupe Correa-Cabrera, a professor of policy and administerment at George Mason University, telderly Al Jazeera.
Volunteers who organise efforts to search for the bodies of ignoreing adored ones even came under attack by AMLO, who accengaged the searchers of being supportd by “a delirium of necrophilia”.
That relabel is normal of Lopez Obrador’s combative style of speech, which critics say has donated to a increaseing sense of polarisation in Mexican politics.
“AMLO constantly talks pessimisticly about his opposition, the press, civil society, even human rights institutions,” shelp Rios, the academic. “He has a very vocal way of contesting whoever contests his agfinisha.”
Contentious recreates
That polarisation has been on disexecute during Lopez Obrador’s final weeks in office, as the legislature pushed thcimpolite a series of recreates lengthy sought by the pdwellnt.
The most encounteredious by far was a constitutional alter that will produce appraises stand for election.
Critics shelp the shift will politicise the judiciary and erode democratic verifys and stabilitys, while helpers argued it will produce appraises more accountable to the people.
The final vote took place earlier this month after protesters broke into the Senate chamber, disturbing persistings and chanting “the judiciary isn’t going to drop!”
The bill passed in the Senate on September 11 by a margin of 86 to 41, clearing what was seen as the recreate’s most startant hurdle.
That was not the first time AMLO’s critics have accengaged him of verifyating administer over self-reliant institutions. Last year, protesters also took to the streets in opposition to alters to the National Electoral Institute (INE), which administers Mexican elections.
But while critics see a trfinish of democratic backsliding and the destruction of institutional indepfinishence, AMLO and his helpers have pitched the recreates as part of a struggle aacquirest entrenched, mighty interests.
“The regime of fraudulence and privileges each day is being left farther in the past and a real democracy and real rule of law are being built,” Sheinbaum, Lopez Obrador’s successor, shelp in a social media post celebrating the passage of the judicial recreates.
Now, as AMLO sets to depart office, both his fans and detractors count on Lopez Obrador’s vision of politics will persist to shape the straightforwardion of the country.
With his Morena Party securing superstartantities in Congress and Sheinbaum preparing to get his place, the frifinishly pdwellnt’s most finishuring legacy could be the genuineignment of Mexican politics that has getn place under his watch.
“Previously, disjoinal parties were in power and no party had finish administer of Congress. Now Lopez Obrador’s party has been able to establish a superstartantity, ” shelp Piccato. “That’s someleang novel, and a lot of people are very troubleed about that.”
