Versión Español
EspañolIt is no secret that Mexican politician Andrés Manuel López Obrador is in the presidential race in a real way, and has been planning for this moment for at least 12 years. But AMLO’s desire to be president of the republic seems to be a personal obsession rather than a true inclusive political project for the people, as he insists.
There’s no doubt all his time and effort have not been in vain — his political marketing strategies have improved over time, as today’s AMLO seems to be cleverer, less radical and more open to dialogue than the one insulting his adversaries.
But his totally self-centered methods and expressions of partisanship and his authoritarian approach to decision-making shows him to be a figure advocating for the centralization of power with himself positioned at the top.
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AMLO does not believe in the power of freedom or individual rights. For him there are only two sides: the slaves and the slave owners of the “neoliberal system.” It’s a curious position for someone who lives on the same system financed by taxpayers and who will receive close to one billion pesos in 2017 alone.
All of his inner circle has been a member of the parties he openly considers his rivals — mainly the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) and in the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD).
Something that bothers AMLO and his supporters is that recently, they have been associated with chavismo. The crisis in Venezuela has reached unbelievable levels of inflation, scarcity and insecurity, which has not been looked good for a Mexican candidate holding similar beliefs as the politicians who created that situation.
Last week, Yeidckol Polevnksy tweeted,”#Maduro continues betting on the dialogue in #Venezuela, before coup attempts that promote …”
He also frequently refers to messages and alleged feats achieved by Latin American politicians and left-wing caudillos, such as dictator Fidel Castro’s brother and successor, Raul.
Raul Castro’s words of support for Mexico:
“The wall that is going to be built on the northern Mexican border is an expression of irrationality, not only against our sister nation, but against our region. We express our solidarity from to Cuba to Mexico’s people and government. Poverty, catastrophes and immigrants are not contained with walls, but with cooperation, understanding and peace.”
A person so close to AMLO openly supports the Castro regime? He’s sending a clear message here: his allegedly moderate ideas about certain economic and social issues are nothing more than political marketing strategy for the 2018 election.
AMLO and his followers believe in the redistribution of wealth instead of production and therefore believe in making poverty widespread instead of getting rid of it.
To genuinely eradicate the poverty and corruption that plagues Mexico, the government needs to surrender its excessive powers to its citizens and return to caring only for the right to life, property and freedom.
The policies of his party, MORENA (The National Regeneration Movement) and its opportunist leaders believe in ideologies that have failed over and over again in each of the countries in which they have been implemented.
Twenty-First Century Socialism has suffered hard political electoral battles in recent years throughout the Americas, because those who once voted for them have realized that they bought into a mirage of progress that was in fact only inflation, poverty and public debt. We’ve seen it in Argentina, Venezuela, Peru, Brazil and even the United States.
In spite of all the pending challenges Mexico faces, it still has much to lose. Let us not buy into more false promises disguised as honesty and good intentions. It is true that we need an urgent change of direction politically and socially, but not in the form AMLO is offering it.
