Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador | Geopolitical Intelligence Services

A powerful new president in Mexico

Mexico’s new leader celebrates his victory in the 2018 presidential election

08.08.2018

Swept into office by an overwhelming electoral victory last month, Mexican President-elect Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador will take office with a degree of power not seen in decades. He has prioritized several issue areas, including poverty, corruption and negotiations over NAFTA, but his specific policy agenda remains unclear. The new Mexican leader's success will depend on balancing decisive action with healthy restraints on presidential power

Dr. Andrew Selee

POLITICS

Mexico’s political system faces a defining moment

Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador takes part in a protest against President Enrique Pena Nieto’s energy reforms

14.11.2017

Less than a year ahead of a presidential election, Mexicans have lost faith in the political establishment. Enter Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who promises to end corruption and crony capitalism. He is leading the polls, but his unpredictability and criticism of free markets has business leaders spooked. The main parties will probably cooperate to keep him out of office – but can they clean up their act?

Armando Regil Velasco

POLITICS

Mexico’s future in the balance

Presidents of Mexico and the U.S. sit at a bilateral meeting

03.10.2017

Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto has astutely managed the threats to his country posed by the new administration in Washington. Even so, the progress that he has made on key domestic fronts may prove too modest to defeat the left-wing challenge from Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador during next year’s elections.

Dr. Andrew Selee

POLITICS

Mexico’s energy reforms and production outlook

Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto visits oil drilling platform

01.09.2016

Faced with output declines and the shale revolution, Mexico had little choice but to reopen its oil and gas industry to foreign investors. The early results have been promising, but President Enrique Pena Nieto’s energy reforms are not out of the woods yet.

Dr. Carole Nakhle

ENERGY

Mexico’s education, energy and communication reforms are slow to appear

President Enrique Pena Nieto visits a drilling platform operated by Pemex, which faces reform (photo: dpa)

17.06.2014

Mexico’s Enrique Pena Nieto began his presidential term with a bang nearly two years ago, announcing radical reforms of the three areas which most analysts regarded as the bottlenecks preventing growth. But powerful unions, cronyism, inefficiency and a sluggish economy are making those reforms difficult to progress and it now appears that any changes in the near fu...

Dr. Joseph S. Tulchin

ECONOMY

Recession fears put Mexico's economic reforms at risk

Teachers in Mexico City protested against major education reforms proposed by President Pena Nieto (photo: dpa)

10.10.2013

Since Enrique Pena Nieto became President of Mexico in December 2012, commentators around the world have concentrated on its economic potential and programme of reforms, rather than its crime rate. But this favourable perspective of the nation is in danger of being short-lived as it moves into recession and protests against the changes become the norm in the street...

Professor Gerardo Esquivel

ECONOMY

Mexico’s next president must deliver on election promises

Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, runner-up in the presidential elections is the main obstacle to reforms (photo:dpa)

07.08.2012

The mainstay of President-elect Enrique Pena Nieto was a promise to undertake structural reforms to improve the lives of Mexicans throughout the country. In the second of a two-part series on his election, we look at the prospects and obstacles for those reforms, in particular on energy, the labour market, fiscal policy, education and health. ...

Professor Raul Benitez-Manaut

ECONOMY

The hopes and fears surrounding Mexico’s next president

Mexico's President Enrique Pena Nieto with his wife and daughter (photo:dpa)

31.07.2012

The election of Enrique Pena Nieto as president of Mexico will reinstate the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) at the head of the country’s politics - 12 years after it lost power in 2000. Its reputation then was one of autocracy and corruption, but the newly-elected president has given it a fresh, more palatable image. In the first of a two-part series on th...

Professor Raul Benitez-Manaut

ECONOMY

Mexican voters leave it late to select a president

Enrique Pena Nieto in the lead with days to go to the election (photo:dpa)

29.06.2012

Enrique Pena Nieto is the firm favourite to win the first round of Mexico’s presidential election but 15 to 20 per cent of the country’s 75 million voters have still to decide who to support. Victory for Mr Pena Nieto will mean a return to power for the PRI which ruled Mexico for 70 years and some fear it will be a return to the bad old days of semi-authoritarian ...

Dr. Joseph S. Tulchin

ECONOMY

Mexico election: Josefina Vazquez Mota claims women’s vote in presidential race

Josefina Vazquez Mota, in the race for President of Mexico (photo:dpa)

15.03.2012

Support for Josefina Vazquez Mota is growing in the race for the next President of Mexico. She has shaken up the election race as the first female candidate selected by a main political party. Her popularity is growing with a campaign focussing on women’s liberation as one of the major factors changing cultural, social and political life in Mexico. GIS guest expert...

Professor Raul Benitez-Manaut

ECONOMY