Mexican Presidential Race 1 July 2018.

State Dinner 5 Sep 2001for Vicente Fox


Rodrigo y Gabriela entertainment for May 19, 2010 state dinner for President Felipe Calderon


President Obama meets with President Nieto on May 2, 2013 in Mexico


President Obama meets with President Nieto in 2016 at White House


\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\
The Mexican Presidential Race is this July. A presidential term is 6 years, but the lame duck period will be reduced from 5 months to 3 months in 2024 (like the US did in 1933)

candidates are:
Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) MORENA Tabasco
José Antonio Meade Kuribreña PRI Mexico City
Ricardo Anaya Cortés PAN Querétaro
Jaime Heliodoro Rodríguez Independent
Margarita Ester Zavala Calderón Independent (first lady 2006-2012)

AMLO is a left wing candidate who no doubt has had his chances boosted by President Trump.



AMLO has run twice before. In the 2006 presidential election he received 35.31% of the vote and lost by 0.58%. López Obrador subsequently alleged electoral fraud and refused to concede, leading a several months long takeover of Paseo de la Reforma and the Zocalo in protest.
AMLO was a candidate in the 2012 presidential election and finished second with 31.59% of the vote.

He left the PRD in 2012 and in 2014 he founded the National Regeneration Movement (MORENA), leading that party until 2018.


AMLO has proposed
(1) increases in financial aid for students and the elderly,
(2) amnesty for some drug war criminals,
(3) universal access to public colleges,
(4) cancellation of the under-construction New Mexico City International Airport,
(5) a referendum over an energy reform that ended Pemex's monopoly in the oil industry,
(6) stimulation of the country's agricultural sector,
(7) delay of the renegotiations of NAFTA until after the elections,
(8) decentralization of the executive cabinet by moving Secretaries from the capital to states.

Can anyone name a few issues where the major candidates have a sharp difference? I'd like to care who wins but at this point I haven't heard of anyone except Obrador, who I recall having sour grapes about losing the last time.

AMLO wants to kill the new airport, which is probably one of the largest infrastructure projects in the entire world. Other than that he is pursuing a fairly populist agenda. I think President Trump was the best thing that could have happened to his career.

AMLO is very different from other candidates who seem to be dividing up the same voter block. Either the former first lady or Anaya might be persuaded to end their campaign in exchange for a prominent position greatly improving the odds of a PAN win. Vicente Fox was with the PAN party who in 2000 broke the seven decade control of the PRI party actually supports the PRI candidate.

If Anayo wins, then we will have three major world leaders in the G20 who are very young
Dec 25, 1971 Trudeau Canada 46.3
Feb 25, 1979 Anayo Mexico 39.2
Dec 21, 1977 Macron France 40.4


AMLO (Morena party) age 64


Meade (PRI) age 48


Anaya (PAN) age 39


Margarita Zavala Calderón (former first lady: former PAN; independent) age 50


The Meade (PRI) / Anaya (PAN) / Margarita Zavala Calderón competition seems to be largely about personality over policy. Meade  is a technocrat who has served in both PAN and PRI governments . That blunts the criticism of the large number of citizens of Mexico who view the PRI as a symbol of Mexico's past (including widespread corruption).

I'm not an expert on the MEX airport but have been through the existing one twice, it seemed okay to me, except for the chaos trying to get through customs the first time. That wasn't the fault of the facility but that they had about 1,000 passengers wanting to get through with no ropes or any way to form a line. I told the story before but it was looking like a riot was going to break out when about 50 soldiers burst in and organized the chaos.

I shouldn't throw stones, because we do the same thing, but it would be nice if you didn't have clear customs if you're just making a connection.

Quote: Wizard

I'm not an expert on the MEX airport but have been through the existing one twice, it seemed okay to me ....

The problem with MEX is that there is no room to grow. Although there are two runways they are so close that one can be used for landing and the other for takeoffs, but they can't both be used for landings at the same time. The secondary airports in Mexico cannot expand significantly like they do in the USA.

Cancún is 1/2 size of MEX and Guadalajara and Monterrey are less than 1/4 the size of MEX.

103,902,992 Atlanta, Georgia
84,557,968 Los Angeles, California
79,828,183 Chicago, Illinois
67,092,194 Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas
61,379,396 Denver, Colorado
59,392,500 JFK New York, New York
55,822,129 SFO , California
48,566,803 Las Vegas, Nevada
47,054,696 Toronto, Ontario
46,934,194 SeaTac, Washington
45,909,899 Charlotte, North Carolina
44,732,418 Mexico City
44,511,265 Orlando, Florida
44,071,313 Miami-Dade County, Florida
43,921,670 Phoenix, Arizona
43,393,499 Newark, New Jersey
40,696,189 Houston, Texas


The development of New Mexico City Airport is planned in four stages. Phase I, scheduled to open by October 20, 2020, will consist of one main terminal of 8,000,000 square feet and three independent runways, which would yield a capacity for 68 million passengers annually (present day DFW).

I guess my interest in airports and airplanes goes only so far. Since I'm not a citizen of Mexico, I'll stay out of their politics. Not that anyone would care if I did have an opinion on that matter.

Quote: Wizard

Since I'm not a citizen of Mexico, I'll stay out of their politics. Not that anyone would care if I did have an opinion on that matter.

There is some cross pollination in politics. Mexicans certainly care who wins the US presidential race.

The collapse of the peso just a few weeks into the administration of Mexico's new President, Ernesto Zedillio, (1 December 1994 to 30 November 2000) caused a financial meltdown and close to default on its sovereign debt.The Clinton Administration tried to persuade Congress to appropriate the bailout funds but met stiff resistance from both political parties. Even Ross Perot, the third party Presidential candidate who took almost 20 percent of the popular vote in 1992 election, testified in Congress against the bailout. Pressured by Mexico's collapsing markets and with support for the bailout fading on Capitol Hill, President Clinton circumvented the Congress by using the U.S. Treasury's Exchange Stabilization Fund, an account normally used to stabilize the dollar, to fund the $50 billion in loans.

Turn the caption on to help understand the speech,

As expected AMLO won the presidency. Mexico City now has a female Jewish mayor. It has been the most violent campaign Mexico has experienced in recent history, with 130 political figures killed since September 2017.

AMLO's party is Movimiento Regeneración Nacional, MORENA. The acronym means "brown-skinned" in Spanish. It is a profoundly left-wing political party registered as a political party in only 2014.



93.5628% of total vote Source: National Electoral Institute and Preliminary Electoral Results Program (PREP)
53.0% Andrés Manuel López Obrador MORENA
22.5% Ricardo Anaya PAN
16.4% José Antonio Meade PRI
5.1% Jaime Rodríguez IND

Margarita Zavala de Calderón whose husband was president six years ago, withdrew from the race on 16 May 2018

Quote: Pacomartin

AMLO's party is Movimiento Regeneración Nacional, MORENA. The acronym means "brown-skinned" in Spanish.

I thought it meant brown haired, but a quick search seems to indicate it can mean both. What would someone put in a personal ad in Mexico to indicate how we would put in English "white brunette"?

At the risk of re-hashing an old topic, I still say Mexico should legalize, or at least decriminalize, drugs.

Quote: Wizard

At the risk of re-hashing an old topic, I still say Mexico should legalize, or at least decriminalize, drugs.

I don't know that it would matter to them as the violence is about capturing USA market share.