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Andrés Manuel López Obrador, the president of Las mañaneras, the leader who sets the pace and tone of national politics, the most hated and acclaimed figure of his time, revealed that he is ready to abandon public life. He announced it this Monday, without prior notice and in the middle of a press conference. “I am going to be in all the States before handing over the presidential sash,” said the president, who will begin his tours starting next June 3, just one day after Mexico goes to the polls to vote on the continuity of his legacy and choose who will take the baton of command.
The goodbye tour will start where it all began. Faithful to the symbols, López Obrador wants to conclude his mandate where he has become stronger and has felt more comfortable throughout his political career: with massive events, ground-level tours and supported by his followers. . Obsessed with guaranteeing his place in history, he will dedicate five months to highlighting what he has done, beyond the efforts of Morena, his party, and Claudia Sheinbaum, the candidate for whom he has bet. Convinced that no alternating president has enjoyed his popularity, he will do what none of his predecessors have done. Under the promise of retiring when everything is over, he has decided to squeeze every second he has left in his mandate, between the nostalgia and sadness of some, and the exhaustion and relief of others. “We are talking about the most exceptional figure in Mexican politics since the transition,” says Humberto Beck, an academic at the College of Mexico. “But also of an ambivalent exceptionality,” adds the analyst.
“I am not going to participate in any political activity, I am not going to attend any forum or conference, I am not going to have social networks,” López Obrador assured during his message to the media. To talk about farewell is to think inescapably about what Mexican politics will look like without him. “It is difficult to imagine Morena without López Obrador,” Beck acknowledges. Almost as talked about as the goodbye tour is the announcement that he will disappear from the political scene, a promise made again and again by the president, but questioned by detractors and supporters alike. “Although he presents it as a farewell, the political effect is the opposite: it is a way to consolidate his presence,” explains the researcher. “The mere fact that he is still alive and that he continues to live in Mexico makes him a determining power factor,” he adds.
“It is a farewell tour that is not farewell, it seems difficult for him to really say goodbye to politics,” concedes Viri Ríos, columnist for EL PAÍS. Since the president inaugurated the race for succession in June of last year, Morena undertook a parallel effort, which has received less attention, to consolidate itself as a party-movement and to put unity first, in the face of a heterogeneous membership that has accepted to open the door to actors from all political forces to establish themselves as an electoral machine.
The conflicts, differences and the game of ambitions come until they encounter the authority of López Obrador, who remains the most important figure in
his
party and
his
movement. “He is the heart of the party and I don't think there is a new leadership that controls the party in its entirety, that is already over,” says Ríos. “I see a Morena with many internal conflicts, but also that the true policy is going to be made within Morena itself,” the economist anticipates.
“Even if AMLO wants to leave, Morena is going to bring him back,” says Carlos Bravo Regidor, assuming that internal conflicts may worsen. The analyst affirms that López Obrador “is and will be a politician his entire life” and that “politicians do not retire.” Bravo Regidor emphasizes that the farewell tour will take place in a period in which the outgoing president traditionally cedes prominence to whoever is going to succeed him in power and suggests that a fight for leadership is possible between the president and Sheinbaum, the leader in the polls. “The president goes to his people for a final acclamation; It is still a sign that AMLO is going to continue competing with Claudia until the last day of his presidency,” he comments.
In recent months, the battery of constitutional reforms that the president presented last February, the comments on Sheinbaum's participation in the debate or even the selection of the candidacy for the Head of Government have been reviewed as demonstrations of López's power. Obrador versus his possible successor. Bravo Regidor adds the farewell tour as another message for the favorite to become president. “Sheinbaum is stuck in the straitjacket of continuity, but a good part of AMLO's legacy is going to be defined in the next six-year term,” she says. Beck agrees that the
timing
of the farewell is crucial to understanding its political intention. “It is a cash cut on the Fourth Transformation, but it is also an exercise of power to set the tone for the coming stage,” says the academic.
“He is a president who has been very hated by a part of the population, but for the most part he is a very appreciated politician,” comments María Eugenia Valdés, an academic at the Metropolitan Autonomous University. The president himself has invested a good part of the final stretch of his administration in talking about his legacy and has highlighted the reduction of poverty as his main achievement: almost nine million Mexicans have stopped being poor during the command of him. Valdés also highlights the appreciation of the peso and the progressive increase in the minimum wage as achievements that had not been achieved in decades, and that differentiate him from those who came before him. “He is a president who started his own movement, who left his own mark,” she adds.
“Unlike other politicians, López Obrador clearly proposed a model of change for the country, under the premise that the elites imposed corrupt governments to protect their interests and that this was going to end with him,” says Ríos, about the popularity of the president. “He vocalized the grievances of the lower classes, but from vocalizing to resolving there is a way,” the specialist clarifies. “He restored confidence to vast sectors of the population who were disenchanted or who identified politics with corruption and abuse, but he remained symbolic,” says Beck, who in fact sees a political legacy more inclined toward the negative. . “He has changed the story that we tell ourselves every day about Mexican politics, but it is a narrative dedicated to keeping the fire of grievance and antagonism alive, as if we were campaigning all the time,” adds Bravo Regidor.
All in all, López Obrador has established himself as the dominant force in the country. He is the politician who divides opinions, but who everyone talks about. The riddle that his rivals cannot decipher. The strong man who breaks all the established rules. The most popular president in decades. And that, despite everything, he has been forced to think about turning the page, about planning the final chapter, about sending one last message before giving up the presidential sash. The six-year term ends on October 1.