Listen to the SFL Liberty Report by Gonçalo Torres which delves into the libertarian perspective on the issue of the Mexican Presidential Election with Adolfo Gonzales.
Gonçalo Torres: Hi, thanks for tuning in to the SFL Liberty Report. Today we are joined by Adolfo Gonzales, the programs manager of North and South America at SFL to discuss the Mexican elections. Can you give us a little bit of context? Who were the candidates? What were the main topics of the campaign?
Adolfo Gonzales: Well, in the Mexican context, we’ve of course had for the last period the presidency of Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who has been for a long time, a particular figure in Mexican politics. He has been present in many elections and he finally got to be in the presidency and of course, this was marked by his actions that have favoured the left. I am not sure how familiar you are with the context, but in Latin America, we have the Grupo de Puebla which is a coalition of leftist parties in Latin America. So he was part of that. And that is kind of interesting because that coalition was marked by their associations with some pretty, let’s say, not positive figures like Lula in Brazil, Morales in Bolivia, and of course the Kishners in Argentina.
So it was kind of, let’s say, a hard left in that sense, and one that was very related also to different scandals. So that was the figure of Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO). And in these elections, he was not participating, but he had, let’s say, his candidate, that was Claudia Sheinbaum and of course, the one who is now the elected president. Her presence in the election and her candidacy have been mostly about continuing everything he has been doing. It is more of a continuation rather than a transformation. Along with her, there were other two, major candidates. One was Xóchitl Gálvez, who was the opposition coalition candidate, one that was a mix between three centrist, right and social democrat parties.
So that was kind of the opposition option in this case and the third major actor in in this election was Jorge Máynez for the Citizens’ Movement party. It is a third party for social democrats that had a bit of a rough candidacy because they had a different candidate at first and they changed him midway. It was very tough for them to get a higher place on the ballot. So those were kind of the three main actors.
Of course, politics is a bit simpler in Latin America. So basically Claudia Sheinbaum’s proposals were mostly a continuation of everything that has been done by AMLO.
On the other hand, the opposition proposed undoing most of the things that AMLO have been doing, which was kind of the main proposition. And of course, there were some more nuanced elements on how these changes should be done in education and also the fight against cartels and drugs. But it was basically a criticism of what had been done and just doing it in a slightly different way.
And in the case of Jorge Máynez, who was the third option it was kind of a tougher ask for people. So it had a different style. It was mostly trying to appeal to the new generations, to the youth with some options for them. But in the end, it wasn’t very well structured, so it didn’t have this high-value proposition for this campaign.
GT: At least here in Europe what we say about her predecessor is that he wasn’t very respectful of some democratic institutions. Do you think that Claudia will continue that trend or will she be more democratic?
AG: Unfortunately from what we’ve seen, her position is not only continuing, let’s say the global policy framework of AMLO, but also his style. And as you mentioned, he had this rough style of kind of dismissing crises or dismissing the actual consequences people were seeing on the ground and the poverty and health conditions. Claudia has also shown that style of having some disregard for public institutions. For example, one of the proposals was to change the judicial system to elect judges by popular vote, which is very, very bad in practice. We’ve seen that in Bolivia, for example, that was changed I think over eight years ago by Evo Morales as well. And the results have been terrible. To be honest, the judicial system gets wrecked when you do that because it becomes a popularity contest and people just vote for their parties. So basically you’re politicizing the judicial system. And that was one of the key elements that Claudia was proposing.
So in the end, I don’t think the deterioration of the institutional ecosystem in Mexico is going to stop. I think it’s going to just continue the same way that it has been by AMLO. Of course, Claudia has a different background. She has a much more academic profile. So I don’t think it will be a big threat to democracy or something to be too worried about in that sense. But I don’t think the current process is going to change much.
GT: Another big problem facing Mexico, especially in relations with its biggest or one of its biggest trade partners, America, is the border crisis, which has been worsened by the fentanyl crisis that some say is mainly caused by gangs in Mexico. What will Claudia do about this problem? Or does she have any solutions to the current crisis?
AG: Unfortunately, we have not seen any specific proposal, but again she derives much from the current formula that Mexico has, which is AMLO’s theoretical fight against the cartels. I think this is going to depend actually much more on the next president of the US because Mexico right now is a very important partner for the US. So in that sense, they are pretty much aware of how important the American requests are. So for example, there were some measures made in Mexico to diminish migration towards the US and to kind of tap her a little bit on the drug trafficking. But this happens usually when the US makes some specific requests in exchange for something else as with much of policy and diplomatic exchanges, of course.
But in general, I don’t think there is some specific focus to stop that as a strategy in Mexico, because they also know that’s an element they can use as an exchange card for something else. So AMLO and Morena, his party, have been, let’s say, not friendly, but being enacted into stopping cartel activity. They have had some severe criticism in the past because of how he has managed the cartel situation in Mexico. At some point, you might have seen in the news they caught one of the kingpins of the cartels and they just let him go because they were afraid of the repercussions this could have. But it was a pretty big showcase of what’s the relation there and what’s the power the actual cartels and the guidance have against the government and what they’re willing to do to stop them.
So it’s pretty clear that there isn’t a hard line where the government or the actual party is going to stop them. And I’m afraid Claudia is not going to bring some stronger position to it. They’re going to use, of course, the powers the state has to stub them as much as they need to to have a relationship with the US in that sense. So I’m glad that you mentioned Mexico’s economic relations with the US because last year they overtook China to become the #1 exporter to the US, mainly due to their trade agreement, the USMCA. However, some say that that can be under threat due to some Chinese companies using it to dismiss some tariffs that the US has put in place. Given that Trump might be the next president, it’s very likely.
GT: Is this agreement in danger? What is the future of Mexican relations with the US?
AG: To be honest, I think the Mexican parties in general are very pragmatic in relation to the US. I think they have a clear notion of what the effect of this deal has been. And of course, this has been an American strategy to pick up from China and to nearshore a lot of industry to Mexico. Wages in Mexico have grown dramatically in the last couple of years thanks to this process.
And I don’t think that either Claudia or other candidates would do something that could disrupt that situation because it has given not only the past president but in general, the politics, a lot of good press in that sense.
Of course, when people get money, they’re more happy with the government. So I think this is actually one of the key elements that is going to counter the negative impact of gangs and insecurity. Insecurity is still going to be one of the key elements, of course, in every debate, but having positive results from this relationship with the US is something they’re not going to risk. So I think they’re going to be very smart about it, specifically given Claudia’s background. I think she has enough knowledge of the legal and economic situation, to balance everything in order to not lose that spot.
GT: Given that Claudia won the elections with a large majority, how does this impact your view on the future of politics in Mexico, and specifically on the future state of liberalism in Mexico?
AG: To be honest, unfortunately, this is again a continuation of AMLO’s government in that sense. In the past, we have seen that as much as he has his regard for institutions in general, he has his regard for civil liberties or the overall liberal stance of Mexico, he has some disregard for free press, free speech and of course how people live on the day-to-day. So I don’t think that is going to improve.
I think the conditions for civil liberties, for liberalism in general, are not going to improve. I’m not going to say of course that in the next couple of years, everything is going to become Venezuela. But I think it’s unfortunately not going further in that direction. It’s not something that is going to be improved. I would be hopeful that the court is not going to be as aggressive towards, for example, the press or more established institutions in Mexico, but something that we need to always remember is that Morena, the main party that she’s with, has pretty strong ties to Grupo de Puebla, that is the group which houses Maduro in Venezuela, Luna that is in Brazil and very let’s say negative actors in the region. So that is an element that is going to be in the background always and that is going to affect their position, for example, in what happens in Venezuela or what happens in Argentina with Milei. I don’t think they’re going to have a good relationship with the countries that are freer. And unfortunately, they’re going to be friendlier to the ones that have been pretty aggressive towards liberty in general, so we’ll have to see how she decides to steer that relation with those regimes and see if Mexico is going to maintain its, let’s say, not positive course, but hopefully not accelerate towards something that it’s becoming more authoritarian.
