More than 100,000 people packed into Mexico city’s main square, the Zocalo, December 1 to celebrate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador’s first year in office and listen to this country’s left-leaning president give an impassioned update of his accomplishments to date.
Acknowledging that the Mexican economy hasn’t grown, as many had wished, he nonetheless stressed there is now “greater distribution of wealth” thanks to his policies. “It’s practically impossible to turn back the clock to neoliberalism,” he told the crowd of supporters.
Lopez Obrador boasted that he had fulfilled 89 of 100 promises that he made to the Mexican public 12 months ago, many of them targeted at improving the living standards of the country’s poorest citizens.
Despite his high approval rating (currently around 56 percent), the president’s first year in office has been far from plain sailing. Investors have been cautious to risk their capital in a slowing economy, and the prospect of almost zero growth this year has some analysts suggesting that Mexico is now in a “technical recession.” Meanwhile, serious questions remain over his “softly, softly” approach to security amid rising crime and a daily diet of murder and mayhem. To the dismay of many, he has committed large numbers of his new police force, the National Guard, to stem the flow of Central American migrants through the country in order to avoid a confrontation with U.S. President Donald Trump.
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