MEXICO-CITY - Like in India or the United States, Mexicans will elect a new head of state in 2024. That must spend the next six years dealing with the dubious legacy of Andrés Manuel López Obrador. 'Whoever comes to power, the oppression of indigenous peoples will continue unabated.'
In the run-up to the last election in 2018, current president Andrés Manuel López Obrador, also shortened to AMLO, was mentioned in the same breath as radical left-wing politicians such as Bernie Sanders or Jeremy Corbyn.
He announced reforms in education, higher pensions, a doubling of the minimum wage and more accessible healthcare. His election slogan "First the poor!" won him the vote of many Mexicans. But in the course of his presidency, AMLO showed a different face.
On the one hand, he drastically cut healthcare and education. On the other, he rolled out several industrial mega-projects in the south of the country that had very destructive effects on people and nature.
These projects, from mines and highways to oil refineries, plant themselves in the territory of Mexico's indigenous peoples. These fiercely resisted it, inspired by the Mayan rebels who did something similar 30 years ago.
