CANCELLED: Populism and Democracy in Contemporary Mexico: The Government of Andrés Manuel López Ob..

Professor Alberto J. Olvera (Universidad Veracruzana, Mexico) discusses the populist nature of Mexico's current regime under President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, and its implications for the country's democracy and economy. Mexico's current President, Andrés Manuel López Obrador (aka AMLO), and his young personal party, Morena, won a plebiscitary election in 2018. Citizens rejected the inequality, exclusion, violence and corruption that characterized the regime of the transition to democracy (2000-2018). As a result, the nationalist-developmentalist project, which remained in a residual condition for almost four decades, is slowly coming back, but under historical conditions that turn it inviable. The populist-personalist nature of Mr. López Obrador's leadership creates new risks to the precarious Mexican democracy. As in all populist projects, there is a leader who brings together a heterogeneous political bloc, creates a common floor of symbols and language, and gives direction and sense of mission to his deed.The Mexican case corroborates the hypothesis of the continuity and complementarity of contemporary precarious democracies and populism. However, the economic and political space for the consolidation of a populist regime in Mexico is today small. This space is closing rapidly due to the numerous avoidable errors the government is making in  matters of economic management and because of the destruction of the (scarce) state capacities that has been set in motion. Besides, the government has no plan to control criminal violence and put an end to impunity. These deficits complicate governability and create new risks.