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The best way to start this column is with a personal story: On July 2, 2012, Enrique Pe\u00f1a Nieto and the Party of Institutional Revolution (PRI), won the presidential election in Mexico. That night, as part of the student movement #YoSoy132, we invited people to see the results at the Z\u00f3calo of Puebla. When I was on the way, we passed by the front door of the PRI state headquarters, it was closed but a party could be heard inside the building. It was only the party elite though who had come to celebrate the victory. In contrast, last Sunday, on July 1, 2018, the victory of Andres \u201cAMLO\u201d Manuel Lopez Obrador was shouted and celebrated in all the public squares of Mexico. And I must confess that I did not cry, I just got a PRI in my eyes, and with the result of the election, it came out.<\/p>\n
Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, the candidate of the Accessible Revolution, managed to win in his third presidential bid, and not only win, he took the election with a brutal majority of 53 percent of the votes. Mexicans chose, for the first time in at least 60 years, a government of the Left\u2014that is if we do not count the electoral frauds of 1988 and 2006\u2014and decided to trust in the figure of a charismatic leader, considered by his detractors to be a populist, and messianic.<\/p>\n
And it is to be recognized, Andr\u00e9s Manuel, as any great leader of the left, has a cult of personality, which was also combined with the despair of a country with more than 200,000 dead, thousands of displaced and disappeared by the war on drugs. With a political class completely alienated from the reality of their country, a country with the richest man in the world and where 53.4 million of people are poor. This allowed for the coalition of the now president elect to win in a landslide almost all the states, Mexico City and especially the Chamber of Deputies and Senators, where it will enjoy a simple majority.<\/p>\n
With a specific political platform, he proposed ending corruption, ending the war on drugs, offering amnesty to people who, due to necessity, have been involved in organized crime, removing privileges for officials and ex-presidents, and health and education for all.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s important to note that in his first speech, he spoke of the development of the different regions of the country, where migration destroys our communities, and acknowledged that the lack of opportunities and insecurity have forced many people to leave their place of origin: \u201cLet\u2019s have those who migrate, do so by choice, and not out of necessity,\u201d he said before a Z\u00f3calo full of citizens who came to celebrate with him.<\/p>\n
Personally, I found very inspiring his his invitation to dialogue and reconciliation, but above all the call to the citizens to collaborate with the government: \u201cThis will be a government by the people, and for the people.\u201d And something even more important was the recognition of his historical responsibility and his transcendence when he said: \u201cI will not fail you … because my only legitimate ambition is to go down in history as a great president of Mexico.\u201d<\/p>\n
And here, I want to make a couple of precisions, many people\u2014especially the conservative media\u2014compare L\u00f3pez Obrador with Hugo Ch\u00e1vez or Fidel Castro, but this is a person who has had a great influence in Mexico for more than 12 years, when he lost a very dubious election by less than one percentage point, before a candidate supported by big U.S. capital. However, instead of calling for an armed movement or a violent revolution, he decided to retreat and start a grassroots movement, build from the bottom-up and focus on consolidating alliances that today bear fruit, this is what I call it an accessible revolution, with respect for institutions, something lukewarm that puts social peace at the forefront.<\/p>\n
On the other hand, I am convinced that the vast majority of Mexicans did not vote for \u201cthe Messiah.\u201d Last Sunday people came out convinced of only one thing: change. And this fervent desire in the hearts of Mexicans was stronger than the economic power of Mexican and foreign entrepreneurs, stronger than the political influence of the United States and stronger than the electoral structure of the PRI, a party that had lived through electoral frauds during 92 years. The people have spoken and with a strong voice said, \u201cEnough!\u201d<\/p>\n
Starting in December, many of the activists and community organizers in Mexico will find themselves on the other side of the opposition for the first time in their lives. This makes me reflect on our role in leading the change that we all want to see in Mexico. We must understand that we need everyone to build up, looking for the possible consensus, and educating and leading by example when necessary, so our first responsibility is to question our pedagogy and get rid of any moral superiority.<\/p>\n
For all those who did not vote for AMLO, I hope you know that we are not enemies, we are a country that will keep walking, now in a different direction and that \u201cchange that is within oneself\u201d is easier when we do it all together.<\/p>\n
Let us say that in this storm of sad news and threats against the integrity of our families and our personal dignity, a victory of this size has the ability to return hope, at least on paper. But in the\u00a0 <\/span>words of Chicharito: \u201cLet\u2019s imagine f—ing amazing things!\u201d Let\u2019s imagine them, and now it\u2019s time to work and get them. Qu\u00e9 viva M\u00e9xico!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" [su_carousel source=”media: 38357,38358,38359″ limit=”65″ link=”lightbox” width=”800″ height=”540″ responsive=”no” items=”1″] The best way to start this column is with a personal story: On July 2, 2012, Enrique Pe\u00f1a Nieto and the Party of Institutional Revolution (PRI), won the presidential election in Mexico. That night, as part of the student movement #YoSoy132, we invited people to see […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":35,"featured_media":38357,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"newspack_popups_has_disabled_popups":false,"newspack_featured_image_position":"","newspack_post_subtitle":"","newspack_article_summary_title":"Overview:","newspack_article_summary":"","newspack_hide_updated_date":false,"newspack_show_updated_date":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3929],"tags":[16830,16832],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-38356","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-en","tag-amlo-en","tag-andres-manuel-lopez-obrador-en","entry"],"yoast_head":"\n