Good afternoon, im the director and associate fellows of the american society. Im happy to host this panel, last december, Andres ManuelLopez Obrador won in july 2018 in a landslide victory on a left wing platform that would promote the respect of human rights improve the economy, work to end the ongoing drug war, and address corruption at all levels of government. For many mexicans, amlo has represented a paradigm shift from the governance of the past few decades and sees himself as a remedy to ineffective government responses to corruption and violence. Yesterday marked the First Anniversary of his inauguration and during his first year in office, amlo has enjoyed a record high approval rating. However, in the past year hes also faced challenges on many fronts including mexicos security, economy, and migration. Today, we will discuss his Campaign Promises, how they have fared in this first year, and what to expect going forward. Today, im joined by four experts, carlos is associate professor and Coordinator Program at the center for Economic Research research and teaching in mexico city. His areas of academic expertise are history and contemporary politics in mexico and the United States. The bilateral relationship between both countries and media and journalism. Hes also contributor to various printed Media Outlets and commentator on radio and television. Rebecca belchavez is a senior fellow in the peter d. Bell program at the interamerican dialogue. She served as Deputy Assistant secretary of defense for western Hemisphere Affairs from 2013 to 2017. Before joining osc policy, she was professor of Political Science with tenure at the United StatesNaval Academy in annapolis, maryland. He research has focused on western hemisphere security and on comparative politics with an emphasis on the rule of law, democratization, human rights and latin american politics. Tony garasasu is the regional director for latin america and the caribbean at the International Republican institute. Before being named as regional director, tony served as the director of the center for Global Impact at iri and oversaw the institutes programming in central america, haiti, and mexico. Before joining iri, he served as director of business and Government Relations at globia infrastructures and Deputy Director of International Affairs at the Florida Office of tourism, trade and economic development. And joining us today by video is gladys mccormick, jay and debby moskowitz endowed chair at the school of citizenship and Public Affairs of syracuse university, where she focuses on contemporary, political and history of latin america and more specifically, mexico, corruption, Drug Trafficking and political violence. Shes also senior associate here with the csis americas program. So thank you to all of you for being with us today. So to begin the conversation, carlos, what was the reason for amlos landslide victory last year and what drew voters to him . Well, thank you so much for having me. Press the button. Well, i think that in order to understand the landslide victory of Lopez Obrador, the first thing we need to understand is understand the fiasco of pena nietos administration. There were three issues that became very salient and a source of a lot of popular discontent during pena nietos administration. Number one, it was corruption and impunity. Of course, this is not new certainly in mexican history, but during the pena nieto administration, the level of corruption, manyin particular, the level of public scrutiny involving corruption and journalistic standscandals regarding corruption reached an unprecedented level. Even we touched upon the president , himself, there was a scandal called pena nietos white house. Basically a governor contractor, when pena nieto was governor of the state of mexico, built a house for pena nietos wife, for mexicos first lady, of which there was no evidence of payment. And this was bound to become in many ways sort of a mexican watergate. The scandal was so big and so infuriating, but, you know, with a small difference. With watergate watergate ended up leading to the president s resignation, and in the case of mexico, it led to the firing of the journalists who had done the research. So that was like an impressive moment in history and this happened in november of 2014. And from then on, you know, corruption, scandals, kept on piling up, and there was this sense, you know, that the country was up in flames because of the violence, that would be like a second issue. Between 2011 and 2014, there was actually an important disescent in the homicide levels but 2014, 2015 on, it resumed and reached historical levels that mexico didnt have even in the worst years of felipe calderon. So while that was happening, the sense that, you know, the Political Class or the governing class was just, you know, like devoted, you know, to corruption, really, you know, ended up becoming a very explosive political mix and the third ingredient of it, of course, was a growing, keen sense of justice, inof equality. Very mediocre Economic Growth rates. Poverty has gone down, but, you know, very gradually, very slowly. And also with inequality. So there was this sense, i mean, this was global, of course, not in mexico, but during the last decade theres been a keen awareness of injustice in terms of poverty and inequality that mexico was no exception to, so these three issues really became a very explosive political mix. On the other hand, there were three conditions of possibility for amlos landslide. The first of which was when pena nieto came to power, there was this thing, an agreement between party elites to push forward an agenda of modernizing reforms which were, you know, in the agenda of pena nieto but opposition parties didnt necessarily agree with but they went on with it, anyway. And this created, you know, sort of the impression that, you know, Political Parties were, you know, interchangeable. Particularly, the leaders of the parties, their legitimacy was supposed to be in their capacity to represent the difference between their platforms, their electorate, their party members, and these differences were nowhere to be found at the beginning of pena nietos term, so there was really the sense that the, you know, the mexicos transition to Democracy Party system was, you know, voiding itself of any significant meaning. The second thing was, you know, as a consequence of this, and as a consequence of the fact that the three main parties started voting together in a lot of these reforms, the opposition parties lost credibility as opposition. The ban on the prd, were supposed to be opposition parties but were voting for the government and Lopez Obrador had left the prd in 2012 and had, you know, a new project on a new party which came into existence, i dont remember if it was 2014 or 2015, but he was pretty much out of the everyday political game. Creating his own party. So he was in a way, you know, outside of this crisis, party system crisis dynamic, and the third thing, the third condition of possibility was the fact all of these reforms that were done, of course, there was a certain inflation of expectations, you know, because of the selling of the reforms and public opinion, but these, you know, together with, you know, one of the key elements of the mexican transition to democracy was a gradualist reformism. Reforms every now and thing, things will get better, well get better. I think with this last generation of reforms under pena nieto, people got fed up because the cost of the reforms was very efvident evident, but the actual benefits were uncertain or ambiguous. So all of these conditions, together with the issues i just mentioned, violence, corruption, impunity, injustice, turned Lopez Obrador into the only credible opposition candidate and the election was clearly an election about change. And there was nobody who could actually, like, credibly embody or, you know, give voice to the hopes of change but Lopez Obrador. Lopez obrador has been around. This is his third time as president ial candidate. He didnt win the first two times. He didnt recognize his defeat, but he certainly his defeats but he certainly learned from them. And this time around, he was a much more practical, a much more conciliatory, figure, and he ended up becoming, like, this great magnet for political discontent, you know, that ended up createing an historical result. Hes the first president in the history of mexican democracy who got an absolute majority of the popular vote and whose party got majorities in both houses. And carlos, you mentioned change. So how did amlo promise change during the campaign in the beginning of his tenure . Well, the thing, Lopez Obrador has been promising change for 20 years. He became a member of the prd, like the centerleft party during the transition process. He was the leader of that party. He then became major of mexico city between 2000 and 2005 and president ial candidate in 2006, 2012, and 2018. Lopez obrado are r, r, theres a saying in the u. S. Which applies to Lopez Obrador, a clock that stopped working is still right twice a day. In many ways this happened to obrador. The criticism and rhetoric lopez orbardor, about number one, corruption, about what he calls the mafia in power and about, like, the senseless violence and the war, it started making a lot of sense. In electoral terms, Lopez Obrador had loyal voters since 2006 and this time he had 30 million votes, so during the pena nieto years, he was able to persuade another 15 million voters. I think that on the one hand, it might be because he is a figure that is very antagonistic. Very critical. You know, he knows how to speak the language of of disappointment in many ways. And what he promised basically was to eradicate corruption. I mean, we can go into, like, his hes redefined what corruption means in mexico in many ways. His vision of corruption is much moral or personal than policy oriented or very institutional. But he i mean, and he has the merit of being a political figure in the midst of a Political Class that has been all been discredited because of corruption scandals. Hes a political figure that nobody has been able to accuse of personally enriching himself like from corruption schemes. So that was a goal in this election. All parties, all groups, all politicians, have one way or another in a scandal that haunted them. Lopez obrador didnt. In terms of corruption, he became a very important figure. Also in terms of economic injustice, you know, his motto was, you know, for the good of everybody, let the poor come first. Of course, in a country like mexico where this keen awareness of poverty and inequality, you know, grew exponentially during the last years, of course, this message resonated a lot with the mexican public. And finally, he was an early critic of, you know, the Security Strategy or the war against drug cartels from the very beginning. And, you know, weve had enough evidence during these years that actually the way in which the Calderon Administration waged war against organized crime, against drug cartels, actually produced more violence than it actually solved. Of course, Lopez Obrador has taken this knowledge or this information to the extreme of assuming that then, you know, the solution might be not to aexert exert force which is kind of, you know, a bit too much, but in a way, his criticisms, his diagnosis of what was wrong with the country, started making a lot of sense during the last six years and that was the basis of his promise of change. So as i mentioned up top and carlos started getting into, one of the major areas where amlo made significant Campaign Promises and faced significant challenges is mexican economic policy, so, tony, how did amlo promise to specifically promise to improve the economy while on the campaign and what has he delivered on and what is still outstanding . Great. Thank you. And its great to be here. So in general, you know, amlos Campaign Promises have been have been fulfilled. In terms of the principal Campaign Promises, increase gkpdp, increase minimum salsally, it went to 16, formal employment increased. No increase on taxes. Taxes on savings and apps, phone apps have increased. He has respected the autonomy of the bank, stabilized the Exchange Rate and low historic inflation, about 3 . Hes guaranteed youth employment. Though the plan in motion has been met with skepticism by some. He has really tried to, you know, redo energy policy. Refineries, tobasco, with quite a bit of investment. You know, hes tried to increase investment in infrastructure projects. However, the National Autonomous the National Airport in mexico city which was the new Mexico Airport was canceled and lost about 13 billion so theres been some, you know, quite a bit of contradictions in that. Wuj one of the things despite the Campaign Promises that have been fulfilled, the weight theyve been fulfilled, a little more worrisome at least in my mind. Some decisions have been made more out of political necessity than economic prowess. And really centered around one thing, and thats amlo, so kind of the continuing of the weakness of the institutions. For example, in his most recent state of the union address, he really said that Income Distribution will remain a priority over Economic Growth, kind of arguing that redistributing wealth is better. Government policy is able to help with economic development, help the poor. But, again, theres no structural adjustments that have been able to do that. Hes delivered very easy, quick, wins. For example, stripping president s of pensions, not using the president ial jet, although its my understanding its still not been sold so its in the hangar and still playing quite a bit monthly on the lease. And really, the mexican white house, the blair house, executive office building, all in one, to the public. This has really impacted public perception. Thats why he has over 60 approval rating. And a poll done a couple of months ago indicated, you know, that 51 over 51 of citizens really view the actual situation both personal and family as much better than it did before amlo took office. I think it was about an increase of about 9 . Again, its this perception that people are really kind of focusing in on. And one of his Campaign Promises that was a little more specific was a 4 gdp growth each year. What would that have looked like for the average mexican, and what did the growth that actually happened this year mean for mexicans . I mean, Employment Generation generation, you know, has been weak, about 35,000plus jobs every month, which is actually less than pena nietos first year in office, you know, which kind of think back, is kind of worryisome a little bit on the economy, but the reason youve had these Employment Generation, you know, you have had some stabilization in the in inflation, in Exchange Rate. You know, together with an increase in salaries, can generate a perception of wellbeing. You know, Global Commerce has had a bit of a slow rhythm. And deceleration of the economy. They did mexico did pass legislation for the u. S. Mexico Canada Free trade agreement. Were still waiting for the canadians and the u. S. And hopefully, you know, that will help kind of getting things started. Although, Price Waterhouse and coopers did a survey a few months ago, 42 thought the economy was on the right track. Yet this represents a decrease in confidence. Same time last year in a 2018 survey, 57 were optimistic. Theres a lot of overregulation in business, and theres a lot of uncertainty, which means evident when asked where mexicans concentrate their investments, its mostly in the u. S. And some china as well. Right. And speaking of investments, weve heard a lot of members of the private sector in mexico express concern over his proposed economic policies or his style. What are those concerns, and are they founded . Thats for you, tony, also. Okay. Carlos, if youd like to answer as well. Yeah. Well, i mean, like i said, its the lack of confidence, the weakening of the institutions, that really have been kind of hurting because everything is being concentrated around political or politics. So thats a very, very grave concern. One issue that, you know, for example, the 2020 budget is also of concern, so it was passed, what, november 22nd, 23rd, the2020 budget. One of the things that was even though its 0. 8 increase over last year, one of the concerns is the autonomous entities suffered the most cuts, in familiarparticular the National Institute for telecommunications and i think most controversial, a list for folks in our