Mexico’s AMLO Is Anything but a Lame Duck

In past month’s elections, Mexican voters gave an enormous mandate to Morena, nan ruling statement of outgoing President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, aliases AMLO. The president’s preferred campaigner to win him, Claudia Sheinbaum, won astir 60 percent of nan nationalist vote, 30 points up of her nearest rival. The statement and its conjugation friends won much than two-thirds of nan seats successful nan little location of Congress and fell conscionable 3 seats short of that proportionality successful nan Senate, meaning that Morena is adjacent to nan supermajority successful some houses needed to walk law reforms.

The caller Congress will convene Sept. 1, but Sheinbaum won’t beryllium inaugurated until 1 period later. As a result, for that 1 month, AMLO will possibly beryllium nan astir powerful lame duck president successful history. And while astir presidents—at slightest those who aren’t desperately trying to hold onto power—spend their last period successful agency engaging successful symbolic acts and managing nan boring bureaucratic process of transferring powerfulness to their successor, AMLO will prosecute successful 1 past effort to rewrite nan rules of Mexican democracy.

AMLO’s “Plan C”—so called because his two erstwhile attempts astatine organization reforms grounded successful Congress—will instruction nan predetermination of each judges, including Supreme Court justices, while further undermining nan country’s independent electoral institutions and reducing nan powerfulness of different regulatory agencies. The existent Congress, successful which Morena does not bid a supermajority, antecedently blocked Lopez Obrador’s attempts to betterment nan constitution and, erstwhile that failed, to walk authorities to instrumentality nan aforesaid reforms—his Plan A and Plan B, respectively. Morena’s ascendant position successful nan caller Congress intends nan president has a beardown chance to execute his remaining goals successful his last weeks successful office.