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Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has one week remaining in his term as Mexico’s president. Traditionally, outgoing heads of state spend their final weeks tidying up loose ends and working with their successors to make the transition as seamless as possible.
Not Lopez Obrador. AMLO, as he is known, has spent the past several weeks stirring the pot, both within his country and with regard to his relationship with other countries, including ours.
He certainly isn’t doing any favors to incoming president Claudia Sheinbaum, to takes office Oct. 1. Even though she belongs to AMLO’s Morena Party and has pledged to continue his policies, she could find herself handcuffed by his recent actions — and she, not he, will have do deal with the fallout and have to mend the fences he seems all too happy to burn as he prepares to leave office.
For example, late last month Lopez Obrador announced a “pause” in Mexico’s diplomatic relationship with the United States and Canada, his country’s two largest trading partners, after officials there expressed concerns about his plan to overhaul Mexico’s judicial system to make it more subservient to the presidency.
The president took umbrage after U.S. Ambassador Ken Salazar said the changes, which include the election rather than appointment of top judicial positions could “threaten the historic trade relationship we have built, which relies on investors’ confidence in Mexico’s legal framework.” Salazar said drug cartels could take advantage of inexperienced or malleable judges and threaten Mexico’s entire system of government.
Moreover, Lopez Obrador has blamed the United States for recent drug cartel-related violence in the state of Sinaloa, after U.S. authorities arrested two major cartel members. The arrests appear to have led to a battle for power between the two gang leaders. AMLO’s recent increased activity, and belligerence, has forced Sheinbaum, his protégé, to insist that he won’t continue to run the country with her as a mere figurehead.
Lopez Obrador certainly isn’t doing her any favors; he’s compromising her position, and public trust, by forcing her to defend actions for which she, and not he, must face the consequences.
Perhaps these late moves are efforts to go out on what he might believe is a high note as he ends a term that has generally been criticized for its curtailment of freedoms, poor economic performance and failure to address cartel violence.
This is not the time for hissy-fits. The outgoing president should be working with Sheinbaum to transition to her administration, which she has said will have some differences in policies and approaches to issues affecting the country. He should be helping her build relationships with key officials, especially in the United States and Canada, instead of further alienating those officials just before he bails out and leaves her to deal with the diplomatic damage. Lopez Obrador’s administration will be remembered for its regression to old restrictive, socialist policies that hindered Mexico’s development for most of the past century. His most recent actions likely will only cement his position as one of his country’s more mediocre presidents.
