Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, a 64-year-old baseball lover, leftist nationalist who rallied voters with his battle against corruption, crime and drugs, won a landslide victory on Sunday night in Mexico’s presidential election.
Obrador known by his initials, Amlo, was the former mayor of Mexico City mayor and is estimated to have received over 53% of the vote share more than double his closest rival, according to the national electoral agency. AMLO’s victory has also seen the emergence of a new party, National Regeneration Movement.
US President Donald Trump congratulated Amlo in a tweet, tagging that he looked forward to working with him. “There is much to be done that will benefit both the United States and Mexico,” Trump said.
Congratulations to Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador on becoming the next President of Mexico. I look very much forward to working with him. There is much to be done that will benefit both the United States and Mexico!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 2, 2018
Amlo’s win has created a history as the first leftist to be elected since Mexico began its journey towards a democratic form of government more than 30 years ago. It has also deepened and strengthened the democracy as Mexico was ruled by The Institutional Revolutionary Party for 71 years from 1929 to 2000.
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His closest rivals, Ricardo Anaya from the National Action Party (PAN) received around 22% and Jose Antonio Meade, of PRI received around 16% of the votes. An estimated 89 million Mexicans caste their vote, indicating that people wanted a change and are exasperated with violence and poverty. They no longer want to accept the shifting of power between PRI and PAN that has been the hall mark of the last 18 years, since the end of one party rule in 2000.
It also expected that Amlo’s approach towards the Mexico’s 11-year-old war on drugs will be softer. Drugs have claimed more than 200,000 lives in the country. During the campaign, while addressing the crowd Amlo said, “you cannot fight violence with more violence, you cannot fight fire with fire”.
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