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Kurt Hackbarth is a writer, playwright, freelance journalist, and the cofounder of the independent media project “MexElects.” He is currently coauthoring a book on the 2018 Mexican election.
Andrés Manuel López Obrador has wagered that he needs the support of the military in order to execute his progressive agenda. But the Mexican army is a conservative organization looking after its own interests, and it is no substitute for the mass base that AMLO must mobilize if he is to achieve true transformation.
In Mexico, the midterm election campaign has just kicked off and President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s right-wing opponents have formed a coalition against his ruling party, MORENA. Their aim is to seize a majority in the lower house and stop AMLO’s progressive agenda in its tracks.
Julian Assange’s extradition to the US has been blocked thanks to a technicality, but he still faces the injustice of years in prison in the UK. While world leaders remain quiet, AMLO stands alone in speaking up for freedom of speech — and has offered Assange asylum in Mexico.
AMLO’s decision to hold off on congratulating Joe Biden on his presidential victory has ruffled feathers among establishment Democrats. But the United States stands to learn a lesson from remaining impartial in foreign elections.
Mexico’s former secretary of national defense was arrested last month for alleged drug trafficking and money laundering. His trial will be important, but justice for the hundreds of thousands of lives lost in the war on drugs means not only prosecuting involved Mexican officials, but also American officials who were complicit all along.
Since the 1990s, Mexico’s banks have been privatized, bailed out, and sold off, resulting in a massive upward transfer of wealth. The AMLO administration is introducing a public option for basic banking, but it must go further to rein in the untrammeled power of the banks.
Neither the Democrats nor the Republicans have been friends to Latin America or to Latinos living in the US. Yet the Democrats seem to take the Latino vote for granted, as Joe Biden’s platform promises to extend the criminalization of immigrants.
The administration of former Mexican president Enrique Peña Nieto was beset by corruption scandals from the beginning. With a host of new, even more shocking revelations, he might finally be held to account for his abuses.
Mexico is one of the most unequal countries in the world, with a caste of superrich lording over a mass of urban and rural poor barely surviving. Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s transfer programs have gone some way toward distributing wealth, but much more needs to be done.
When the US spearheaded the Mexican war on drugs in 2006, many suspected links between members of Felipe Calderón’s administration and the cartels they were charged with stamping out. Now, fresh evidence makes clear that not only were top government figures profiting personally from links to the cartels, but that the US knew about it all along.
Mexican elites have done everything in their power to discredit and undercut President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador since he first took power. In the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, they’re ramping up their attacks.
Pedro Carrizales — “El Mijis” — came to Mexican politics by an unconventional route: a former gang member from the barrios of San Luis Potosí, he is now a left-wing state legislator, dedicated to the plight of Mexico’s poor young people, collateral damage of the war on drugs.
The AMLO government has enacted modest reforms to help struggling renters. But more radical solutions are needed to solve Mexico’s housing crisis. A report from Oaxaca.
In Mexico, the “war on drugs” was never about drugs at all, but about repressing social movements, smashing unions, and creating a shock-doctrine atmosphere for conservative governments to privatize pensions, health services, and the oil sector. The AMLO administration must dismantle the narco-state.
It’s been a year since Andrés Manuel López Obrador took power in Mexico. Against the odds, his administration has won a host of important progressive victories. But it’ll need to do more to withstanding pressure from Washington and the more conservative parts of the MORENA coalition.
In attacking President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s administration over a recent botched raid on the Sinaloa Cartel, the Mexican right is cynically using a crisis of its own making in an attempt to destabilize AMLO, taking Mexico’s people as hostages.
The AMLO government has made progress creating a more just Mexico. But it has more work to do when it comes to women’s rights.
American gun manufacturers are responsible for arming the El Paso shooter. They’re also responsible for arming the bloody drug war that’s killing Mexicans by the thousands.
Trump is threatening a trade war if Mexico doesn’t fall in line with his depraved migrant policy. But a trade war might actually hurt the US more than Mexico. AMLO should call Trump’s bluff and refuse to do his bidding.
Both Mexican and international elites want to scuttle AMLO’s progressive agenda. He’ll only overcome their resistance with mass mobilization.