Whither Mexico?

Andrés Manuel López Obrador, former president of Mexico, departed his home Tuesday to the seat of government in the capital one last time. Thousands of citizens jammed the narrow streets around his car, desperately pushing for one last view of the beloved politician.

López Obrador—or AMLO, as he is popularly known—was on his way to turn over the presidential sash of Mexico, his last official act before, he says, retiring to obscurity at his ranch in the southern Mexican state of Chiapas.

He arrived at the Palace of San Lázaro, the seat of the Congress of Mexico, just after noon. He was joined by the star of the day, president-elect Claudia Sheinbaum, the first female president of Mexico and his political protege. Sheinbaum gave a speech eulogizing López Obrador’s political accomplishments and promising that her presidency would maintain the course he set- the so-called “Fourth Transformation” of Mexican politics. With tears in his eyes, the old president handed over his sash, the symbol of presidential power in the country, to thunderous applause from the audience, and Sheinbaum was sworn in. The second generation of Morena leadership in Mexico had begun.

López Obrador leaves the presidency with one of the highest approval ratings of any Mexican president in history, and indeed one of the highest approval ratings of any political leader anywhere in the world today. More than 70 percent of Mexicans had a high opinion of the president on the final day of his presidency.

He also leaves big questions about Mexico’s future.

First, is he actually going to leave politics, as he has said he wants to? Or will he try to govern the country from afar through Morena, the party he built?

Mexico has a strict term limit for presidential power—“effective suffrage, no reelection” was the slogan that launched the Mexican Revolution and continues to define the popular conception of democratic Mexico. That doesn’t mean, however, that one man can’t rule the country for more than a single term. Plutarco Calles, former president of Mexico and the founder of what is now known as the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), controlled the nation through the party from 1928 through 1934 (a period known as the Maximato after Calles’ nickname, el jefe maximo), despite having other men fill the official seat of power.

López Obrador’s party may seem the perfect means for him to do the same. Founded in 2014, the party was built almost entirely around López Obrador himself as a presidential candidate, and it has always been dominated by his overwhelming personality. His high approval ratings among the populace at large are even stronger among his own people, and if he decided to play kingmaker, it seems very unlikely that he wouldn’t get his way. Because Morena so thoroughly dominates the Mexican political arena—winning an outright majority in both houses of Congress as well as controlling the government of two-thirds of Mexican states—this would give him a great deal of control over everything in the country.

Despite worries from the opposition about López Obrador becoming a second Calles, there are serious indications that this will not be the case. Greatest among them is his choice of an heir. Sheinbaum, though a loyal supporter of the former president, is a very capable politician of her own right, and does not seem the kind who would be content to sit back and let an older man rule in her name. If López Obrador had intended to follow the example of Calles and rule through power within a party, he would likely have chosen a weaker, more pliable successor, as Calles did during the Maximato. It seems more likely that the ex-president is sincere in his desire to leave, if not politics entirely, at least his position as prime decision maker in Mexico, and chose Sheinbaum as the successor most likely to capably take over and execute his vision for the country.

Of course, there is always the possibility that he simply miscalculated, or even that he changes his mind later on, as successors often disappoint (think Roosevelt and Taft). If that is the case, it would be unwise to underestimate Sheinbaum, whose quiet competence makes her a fighting match for control of disputed party leadership.

The second big question is whether Mexico returns to being institutionally dominated by a single party, as it was for almost a century after the establishment of the PRI. López Obrador’s constitutional reforms—including but not limited to the controversial judicial reform that he pushed through at the end of his term last month—certainly put his party, Morena, in a strong position to see that happen. 

The de facto end of political independence for the judiciary and the National Electoral Institute (the agency that runs Mexican elections) provide a tempting opening for the kind of party entrenchment that Latin American countries have so frequently seen turn sour, including in Maduro’s Venezuela—a regime that López Obrador was a consistent ally of. And Sheinbaum seems to have no interest in changing course on this portion of the ex-president’s program: her recently-released policy platform “100 Steps for the Transformation” includes a section promoting the reconstitution of federal electoral bodies, reducing the number of seats and ending proportional representation in the Mexican Congress, and extending the principle of “no reelection” to Mexican deputies and senators, all of which strengthen the political power of incumbent Morena.

Despite López Obrador’s strong rhetoric denouncing corruption, Mexican politics is far from squeaky-clean. The institutional reforms advocated by Morena also make it easier—and therefore more appealing—for corruption to enter the political process and for well-placed officials to hand out a favor or two (and get one or two in return), and as those favors mostly go to the party in power, Morena stands to benefit.

As a result, Morena’s political strength is likely to grow, at least for the immediate future—both legitimately and less legitimately. The increased possibilities for corruption in the judiciary and electoral bodies will also make it likely that organized crime becomes harder for Mexico to control. Nevertheless, it would be very surprising if Mexico regressed to anything like the dictadura perfecta of the 20th-century PRI.

Mexico now has a tradition of democracy, and the transfer of power, limited though it may be, something that Priista Mexico, only recently recovering from the ravages of the Revolution and the dictatorship of Porfirio Díaz, never had. Morena may be popular, but today, Mexicans demand that the will of the electorate be respected. They will no longer tolerate the kind of flagrant electoral fraud that the PRI used to maintain control of the country. When the party becomes legitimately unpopular, as all parties eventually must, its electoral adjustments will not be enough to save it.