Mexico in Transformation - from AMLO to Claudia

A 'new Mexican revolution' in the time of Trump

In Mexico in Transformation, David Raby argues that since 2018 Mexico has undergone a process of change which no-one anticipated and which is nothing short of revolutionary.

The 2018 victory of Andrés Manuel López Obrador, usually known by his initials AMLO, and his Morena movement began a multi-dimensional programme of social change, referred to as the Fourth Transformation. This has been cemented by the subsequent victory of Claudia Sheinbaum, Mexico's first female president.

The Fourth Transformation includes the fight against corruption, including the war on tax evasion. Mexico's restoration of energy sovereignty is also crucial move, gaining national control of oil, gas, electric power and lithium has fundamentally transformed the country's prospects

Progressive welfare programmes such as public universal pensions, restoration of free public education, free universal healthcare and many others increase the economic scope of the public sphere on a scale which has few if any parallels in the "Western world".

Participatory democracy is also advancing as is the constitutional recognition of Indigenous and Afro-Mexican rights.

The administration of President Donald Trump in the US poses a threat to its southern neighbour with threats of trade wars and border tensions but Mexico's unflinching stand of dignity and independence has earned praise from across Latin America and the world, and its strong economic and political bargaining position may enable Mexico to resist US hostility successfully.

David L Raby is Professor Emeritus in History at the University of Toronto (specialising in Latin American and Iberian affairs) and a former Senior Fellow in Latin American Studies at the University of Liverpool. He has published extensively on the modern history and politics of these areas and has also been actively involved in solidarity movements with Cuba, Chile, Venezuela, Colombia and Central America in both the UK and Canada. His most important publications are Educación y Revolución Social en México (Mexico, Editorial SepSetentas, 1974), Democracy and Revolution: Latin America and Socialism Today (Pluto Press, 2006) and Fascism and Resistance in Portugal (Manchester University Press, 1988).

MP for Islington North