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The Los Angeles Times

Why is AMLO one of the world’s most popular politicians? We took a road trip through Mexico to find out

By Kate Linthicum and Photography by Gary Coronado December 19, 2022 

SAYULA DE ALEMAN, Mexico —  

From the roadside stand in this muggy stretch of southern Mexico where Carmelo Morrugares sells coconuts for a living, the 45-year-old father of three says he can see his country changing for the better.

There’s his pay, which has doubled from $5 to $10 daily thanks to a series of minimum-wage hikes. And there are the hefty welfare payments that his elderly father and student daughter now receive from the government.

Then there’s the highway itself, repaved amid a boom of fresh investment across the impoverished south.

For all this good fortune, Morrugares credits one man: President Andrés Manuel López Obrador.

“He’s a visionary,” said Morrugares, who cheered on the president recently as he zipped past the coconut stand on his way to promote a refurbished train line that will pass through this region. That the famously frugal López Obrador traversed the dense tropical forest by car instead of helicopter said it all.

“Presidents before would just fly over,” Morrugares said. “We’ve never had a leader so close to the people.”

That sort of praise isn’t something you hear much in Mexico’s wealthier enclaves, where criticism of López Obrador has reached a fever pitch. Detractors, tens of thousands of whom marched in Mexico City last month, hate everything about the president: his moralizing tone and his ill-fitting suits, his disregard for democratic norms and his embrace of the military, his hypersensitivity to critique and his insistence that every problem can be blamed on a single enemy — the rich.

But as they pen newspaper columns and fire off tweets insisting that Mexico has never been worse off, his critics are speaking largely to themselves.

López Obrador is one of the most popular leaders on Earth.

He won in a landslide four years ago vowing to finally put the “poor first” in a country that he said had been hijacked by a corrupt and conservative elite. And despite a stagnating economy, staggering levels of violence and growing evidence that his efforts to reduce inequality have failed, his approval rating still tops 60%.

To better grasp the breadth of that support, The Times traveled this month across the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, a 140-mile wide strip of land that spans two states — Veracruz and Oaxaca — and stretches from the Pacific Ocean to the Gulf of Mexico.

Here in the hinterlands, far from cosmopolitan Mexico City and the thriving industrial hubs in the north, it quickly becomes clear why AMLO, as he is widely known, is so beloved.

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As the sun sank over the Pacific near the Oaxacan port city of Salina Cruz, 63-year-old Carlos Estrada hurried to finish work in the salt mine where he has labored since he was 15.

Wearing a brace to support his back, he heaved 110-pound bags of dirt onto the shoulders of his son, who was building a shallow basin used to isolate salt from seawater.

Estrada always assumed he would work until he died, like his father and grandfather before him. As one of almost 60% of Mexicans toiling in the informal economy, he is not eligible for a pension.

But López Obrador has vastly expanded the nation’s welfare system, giving cash transfers to 10 million older Mexicans along with millions of students, young workers and people with disabilities.

When Estrada turns 65, he’ll receive $300 every two months, enough to allow him to retire. “If God wills it and I’m still alive then, I will really enjoy it,” he said.

If there is one López Obrador policy that has pumped up his popularity, it is these direct payments. In Oaxaca, nearly every household is benefiting from at least one of the entitlement programs.

At the same time, electric bills and gas prices have fallen here in the south thanks to new government subsidies.

The president’s critics write-off such programs as a cynical play for votes. Many economists say inequality hasn’t improved, in part because López Obrador has cut other anti-poverty initiatives.

But Estrada says he can see a difference.

He and his family used to eat meat only once every two months. Now, they eat it every two weeks.

“The president,” Estrada said, “is really good people.”

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Out on the water, hulking oil tankers bobbed on the waves in the fading light — another reason that López Obrador is appreciated here.

State oil producer Petroleos Mexicanos, long one of the only sources of decent jobs in the south, has struggled for decades and until recently seemed on the verge of collapse as the energy sector began to open to foreign investment and renewable sources like wind and solar.

Rejecting those reforms, the president has funneled billions into Pemex, keeping it on life support even as its production of crude has plummeted and it has become the most indebted oil producer in the world.

Environmental activists have decried his embrace of fossil fuels, including the construction of a $12-billion oil refinery in nearby Tabasco. Top U.S. and Canadian officials say his nationalist policies violate regional free trade agreements.

The thousands of Pemex employees who work in and around Salina Cruz have a different view.

“If Pemex disappeared, it would turn this into a city of slaves where everybody makes minimum wage,” said Teresa Marin, 60, who retired from the company five years ago with a pension that has afforded her a middle-class life: a silver SUV, lunch dates with friends, and even a recent vacation to Colombia.

She greeted López Obrador with a homemade poster the last time he came to town. She was struck by his humility when he stopped on the side of the road for a snack of gorditas and atole, a traditional corn drink.

While previous leaders resided in Mexico’s elegant presidential palace and traveled the world on private jets, López Obrador lives in a small apartment inside his downtown office and flies commercial — always in coach. He speaks directly to the nation for two hours at a televised news conference each weekday morning, expounding on history and world events, ranting against his “racist and classist” political opponents and otherwise setting the agenda for the day.

It doesn’t hurt that he was born in a dusty village in the nearby state of Tabasco, and that his father was an oil worker, Marin said.

“He’s not an elite,” she said. “We can identify with him.”

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Twelve miles inland, on the outskirts of a town called Santo Domingo Tehuantepec, another signature López Obrador project is taking shape.

On a recent morning, workers were laying fresh tracks on the train route that will cross the isthmus, carrying cargo from the Pacific to the Gulf. Officials are planning several industrial parks along the route in hopes of making the isthmus an alternative to the Panama Canal.

Like another project López Obrador has launched in the south, a tourist train through the Yucatan peninsula, this one has been plagued by concerns about graft and environmental destruction and has angered homeowners who are being forced to relocate.

But for Heriberta Sosa, a 44-year-old who runs a small paper store near the tracks, the relocation of some of her neighbors is worth it to bring an engine of development that might allow her children to stay in Oaxaca instead of seeking work elsewhere. She and her husband spent years being paid under the table in factories and restaurants in South Carolina to save enough money to open a business here.

“This is going to benefit the whole isthmus,” she said. “Some of us are going to have to pay.”

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On a windswept hill 80 miles north, 77-year-old Maurilio Galeana Alejo stood quietly before his son Amadeo’s grave.

Amadeo left this village, Boca del Monte, in the 1990s.

The North American Free Trade Agreement had just taken effect, eliminating most tariffs across the continent and bringing hundreds of new factories to central and northern Mexico.

The ranks of Mexican billionaires expanded rapidly. But for small farmers like Galeana, the trade deal was devastating. How could his homegrown corn compete with imports from U.S. agribusinesses, many of which received subsidies from the U.S. government?

“There was nothing to eat here,” Galeana said. So at 15 his son migrated to the United States.

Amadeo returned nearly three decades later in a casket. He had died of cancer while working in Wisconsin.

Galeana was angry that he had missed knowing his son as an adult. He was angry about generations of Mexican leaders that he said had “screwed over” the rural poor.

As a rule, he was suspicious of politicians, but López Obrador, he said grudgingly, seemed different.

“Neo-liberalism failed,” the president has repeatedly declared, a not so contentious conclusion in a country where people work longer hours than almost anywhere in the world yet 40% can’t afford basic food.

While López Obrador has continued many of the same free-market policies of his predecessors, he has also focused new programs in the regions that he says were most left behind globalization. “We’re doing justice for south and southeast Mexico,” he says.

Some of his programs are aimed specifically at people like Galeana, including one called Sembrando Vida that pays farmers to plant trees.

It has been mired in scandal, with environmentalists claiming that it is in fact fueling deforestation because farmers must have cleared plots of land to be eligible to join. Still, Galeana sees it as a positive sign.

“We’re less screwed up than we were before,” he said as he cleared off the headstone ahead of a ceremony to commemorate the anniversary of his son’s death. “This government is giving us more.”

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As the highway winds into Veracruz state, the dry hills of Oaxaca give way to dense forest. The Gulf lies ahead.

In the city of Coatzacoalcos, the malecon that stretches along the water used to be filled with bars and nightlife, the beaches crowded with tourists. But the economy shriveled as cartels took over and gang violence — including a 2019 arson attack that killed 31 people in a club — scared away visitors. Much of the malecon is abandoned now except for squatters and stray dogs.

Much of the country is in a similar purgatory — strangled by criminal groups that are often interlocked with local politics and demand extortion payments from local businesses.

López Obrador promised to bring peace to Mexico. His main strategy to reduce violence — doubling the number of federal troops deployed across the country — has had little impact here. Coatzacoalcos remains one of Mexico’s deadliest cities.

Polls show that most Mexicans are very worried about the violence. They are also concerned about the economy, which was battered by the COVID pandemic and has been slow to recover. Economists say that López Obrador deserves part of the blame because — apart from his pet projects — he has embraced a policy of austerity.

Yet there he is, his silver hair, tanned skin and white smile emblazoned everywhere across this region, on billboards, murals and posters hung proudly outside of homes.

Jeremy Morales, 21, and Enrique Castañeda, 22, debated why on a recent afternoon as they strolled along the mostly deserted beach on a break in between exams at a nearby university.

“It’s the money,” said Castañeda. “Everybody knows somebody who has been helped.”

“But that’s not the way to move the country forward,” Morales said. “You won’t get rid of poverty by just giving away cash.”

“At least he’s not stealing it,” Castañeda said. “We’re so used to leaders who are so bad.”

“It’s true,” Morales said, laughing. He paused. “I guess it doesn’t take much to make us thankful.”

Cecilia Sanchez in The Times’ Mexico City bureau contributed to this report.

CBS News

More signs indicate Russia’s invasion of Ukraine could be unraveling

Holly Williams – October 29, 2022

There are more and more signs that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine could be unraveling.

One of the most glaring setbacks in its war is its recent big call-up of more troops — a plan that doesn’t appear to be working. Russia’s mobilization has caused anger at home, forcing the old and inexperienced into uniform, with claims they’re short of even basic equipment. The call-up followed weeks of embarrassing setbacks for Russian forces, as Ukraine has retaken swaths of its territory. And in the Russian-occupied city of Kherson, officials appointed by Moscow have evacuated civilians ahead of another expected Ukrainian counter-offensive.

On Russian state TV, at times the tone seems close to despair. Russia miscalculated its strength and for eight straight months can’t win in its war on Ukraine, said one commentator. Perhaps another sign of Russian desperation is its new tactic: targeting the Ukrainian power grid, which has led to blackouts in Ukraine — but no collapse in morale. As Russia’s nuclear forces started annual drills this week, President Vladimir Putin repeated his government’s allegation that Ukraine could detonate a radioactive device — a so-called “dirty bomb.” Some fear Russia is planning a false-flag operation, staging an incident and blaming Ukraine, perhaps as a pretext for using a nuclear weapon. “I’m not guaranteeing you that it’s a false flag operation yet, don’t know,” said President Joe Biden. “But it would be a serious, serious mistake.” Ukraine’s defense minister told CBS News Russia is exhausted, and trying to force Ukraine and the West to negotiate. In a bizarre speech this week, Putin railed against the West, including gay pride parades and so-called cancel culture. But he also said that it would make no sense for Russia to use a nuclear weapon. Biden’s response to that was: If he has no intention, why does he keep talking about it?

The New York Times

In Putin’s Russia, the Arrests Are Spreading Quickly and Widely

Anton Troianovski – July 5, 2022

They came for Dmitry Kolker, an ailing physicist, in the intensive care ward. They came for Ivan Fedotov, a hockey star, as he was leaving practice with a film crew in tow. They came for Vladimir Mau, a state university rector, the week he was reelected to the board of Gazprom.

The message sent by these high-profile detentions: Nearly anyone is now punishable in Vladimir Putin’s Russia.

The flurry of arrests across the country in recent days has signaled that the Kremlin is intent on tightening the noose around Russian society even further. It appears to be a manifestation of Putin’s declaration in the early weeks of his war in Ukraine that Russia needed to cleanse itself of pro-Western “scum and traitors,” and it is creating an unmistakable chill.

“Every day feels like it could be the last,” Leonid Gozman, 71, a commentator who continues to speak out against Putin and the war, said in a phone interview from Moscow, acknowledging the fear that he, too, could be arrested.

None of the targets of the recent crackdown was an outspoken Kremlin critic; many of the loudest Putin opponents who chose to stay in Russia after the invasion of Ukraine, like politicians Ilya Yashin and Vladimir Kara-Murza, were already in jail. But each of the recent crackdown targets represented an outward-looking Russia that Putin increasingly describes as an existential threat. And the ways they were taken into custody appeared designed to make waves.

Kolker, the physicist, entered the hospital in the Siberian city of Novosibirsk last week for treatment for late-stage cancer, so weak that he was unable to eat. The next day, agents for the Federal Security Service, or FSB, the successor agency to the KGB, arrived and, accusing him of treason, flew him to a Moscow jail. Over the weekend, he died in custody.

“The FSB killed my father,” his son Maxim, 21, wrote in all capitals on social media alongside an image of the three-line telegram sent by the authorities to notify the family of the death. “They didn’t even let our family say goodbye.”

Maxim Kolker, who is following in his father’s footsteps as a physicist in Novosibirsk, said Dmitry Kolker had been known for hiring students to work in his laboratory, helping persuade some budding Russian scientists not to seek work abroad.

Now, he said in a phone interview, the family has to return Kolker’s body from Moscow at their own cost.

It was unclear why the FSB targeted Dmitry Kolker, 54, a specialist in quantum optics. State media reported that he had been jailed on suspicion of passing secrets abroad. But critics of the Kremlin say it is part of a widening campaign by the FSB to crack down on freedom of thought in the academic world. Another Novosibirsk physicist who was also arrested on suspicion of treason last week, Anatoly Maslov, remains in custody.

The arrests came at the same time as the arrest on fraud charges of Mau, a leading Russian economist who is the head of a sprawling state university, the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration.

Mau, 62, was in no way a public critic of the Kremlin. He had joined more than 300 senior academic officials in signing a March open letter calling Russia’s invasion of Ukraine a “necessary decision,” and he was reelected to the board of Gazprom, the Russian energy giant, just last week. But he also had a reputation as what scholars of Russian politics call a “systemic liberal,” someone who was working within Putin’s system to try to nudge it in a more open and pro-Western direction.

His Kremlin ties were not enough, it turned out, to save Mau from a fraud case that has already ensnared the rector of another leading university and that critics said appeared designed to snuff out remaining pockets of dissent in Russian academia.

“A big enemy of the government and the stability of the government are people who carry knowledge,” said Gozman, who worked with Mau as a government adviser in the 1990s. “Truth is an enemy here.”

Ekaterina Schulmann, a political scientist who taught at Mau’s academy until April, called the institution “the educational hub for most of the country’s civic bureaucracy” and described his arrest as Russia’s highest-level criminal prosecution since 2016. It indicated, she said, that ideological purity was becoming an ever more important priority for Russian authorities, especially in education.

“In education, it is important that a person actively profess and share the values that he has to implant in the heads of his students,” said Schulmann, now a fellow at the Robert Bosch Academy in Berlin. “Here, ambiguous loyalty may not be permitted.”

Putin has said as much himself. In the speech in March in which he railed about the traitors in Russia’s midst, he called out those who physically reside in Russia but live in the West “in their thoughts, in their slave-like consciousness.”

He is also increasingly asserting that truly patriotic Russians must be committed to living and working in Russia. He told an economic conference in St. Petersburg last month that “real, solid success and a feeling of dignity and self-respect only occurs when you tie your future and your children’s future to your Motherland.”

In that context, the news that Fedotov, the goalie of Russia’s silver-medal national hockey team at the Beijing Olympics in February, signed a contract in May with the Philadelphia Flyers was likely to have been seen as a challenge.

Fedotov, 25, one the hockey world’s up-and-coming stars, was planning to leave for the United States this month, according to Russian media reports.

Instead, on Friday, as he was leaving a practice session in St. Petersburg, he was stopped by a group of men, some in masks and camouflage, and taken away in a van, according to a television journalist who was filming a special report about him and saw the incident.

Fedotov’s alleged crime, according to Russian news agencies: evading military service. Russian men under 27 are required to serve for one year, although sports stars are typically able to avoid conscription. On Monday, the RIA Novosti state news agency reported that Fedotov had been taken to an unnamed Russian navy training base.

The elaborate detention was widely perceived as punishment for his having chosen to play in the United States rather than stay in Russia. “I won’t be surprised if they put him on some submarine and send him out to sea,” RIA Novosti quoted a Soviet sports veteran as saying. “He won’t go anywhere after that.”

To Gozman, the liberal commentator who remains in Moscow, a common thread running through the recent arrests was their seemingly gratuitous cruelty. In Putin’s system, he said, such behavior is more likely to be rewarded than censured by the state.

“The system is built in such a way that excessive cruelty by an official is rarely punished,” Gozman said. “But excessive softness can be. So any given official seeks to exhibit great toughness.”

The Ledger

Voice of the people: Truth and facts can be become of matter of life and death

The Ledger – March 29, 2022

Truth and facts can be become of matter of life and death

Reporting from journalists has indicated that as much as 60% of Russians do not believe that Vladimir Putin has attacked Ukraine and is bombing and killing Ukrainian citizens. This means that we should not count on the Russian people to remove Putin from power.

A Russian child in Ukraine was told by parents back in Russia that this attack and killing of Ukrainians is not true. Russian state media has conditioned its citizens to believe its version of invasion.

Hard to believe? Here in America, tens of millions of our citizens believe the last presidential election was stolen from the incumbent. Latching on to the Big Lie cost the lives of a number of people during the insurrection at our Capitol Jan. 6. In addition, the same lack of truth and facts puts dozens of public officials in harm’s way from the supporters of the Big Lie.

Some elements of our media are in the same business as the Russian state media, spreading misinformation to advance their causes. The truth and facts can be become of matter of life and death, especially with regard to the life of our democracy.

Daniel W. Brasier, Lakeland

Yahoo! News

Russia ‘losing more ground’ as Ukrainians ‘reclaim towns and positions near Kyiv’

Ellen Manning – March 25, 2022

Russian forces are losing ground in Ukraine, allowing the country’s own forces to reclaim certain key towns and positions just 20 miles from Kyiv, according to the UK’s Ministry of Defence (MoD).

Ukrainian counter-attacks and issues with Russian supply lines are both allowing Ukraine to retake towns and defensive positions up to 21 miles (35km) east of Kyiv, the MoD said in an intelligence update.

After invading Ukraine a month ago, Russia has so far failed to capture a single major city.

Despite warnings that the war could see a quick Russian victory, its armoured columns are moving much slower than expected, with forces taking heavy casualties and running low on supplies.

Read more: Moscow ‘plotting to seal off Crimea’ to stop ‘panicking Russians’ from fleeing

In its intelligence update posted on Twitter on Friday (25 March), the MoD said: “Ukrainian counter-attacks, and Russian forces falling back on overextended supply lines, has allowed Ukraine to reoccupy towns and defensive positions up to 35 kilometres east of Kyiv.

“Ukrainian forces are likely to continue to attempt to push Russian forces back along the north-western axis from Kyiv towards Hostomel Airfield.

“In the south of Ukraine, Russian forces are still attempting to circumvent Mykolaiv as they look to drive west towards Odesa, with their progress being slowed by logistic issues and Ukrainian resistance.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin has continued to claim the invasion is going to plan, but as well as unflinching opposition from Ukrainian forces, he is also said to face issues on home turf, with widespread protests in Russian cities and the risk of being ousted in a coup led by his own security services.

Watch: Kyiv mayor Vitali Klitschko says he cries ‘every day’ at destruction Putin has caused. https://s.yimg.com/rx/martini/builds/42201637/executor.html

Exiled Russian human rights activist, Vladimir Osechkin, said information from an unnamed source within Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) suggested unrest is growing within the service.

Osechkin, who is wanted in Russia for his work exposing abuse in Russia’s prisons, told The Times Putin is being blamed for Russia’s inability to claim Ukraine, and senior figures are beginning to become disillusioned with the war over increasingly oppressive sanctions brought in by the West which are biting at the lives of ordinary Russians.

Reuters

Ukraine’s Mariupol says Russia forcefully deported thousands of its people

March 19, 2022

(Reuters) – The city council of Ukraine’s Mariupol said Russian forces forcefully deported several thousand people from the besieged city last week, after Russia had spoken of “refugees” arriving from the strategic port.

“Over the past week, several thousand Mariupol residents were deported onto the Russian territory,” the council said in a statement on its Telegram channel late on Saturday.

“The occupiers illegally took people from the Livoberezhniy district and from the shelter in the sports club building, where more than a thousand people (mostly women and children) were hiding from the constant bombing.”

Reuters could not independently verify the claims.

Russia’s Defence Ministry said busses carrying people it called refugees from Mariupol began to arrive to Russia on Tuesday, Russian news agency RIA Novosti reported last week. The ministry was not immediately available to comment on the Mariupol city council’s claims.

Some 400,000 people have been trapped in Mariupol, on the Sea of Azov, for more than two weeks, sheltering from heavy bombardment that has severed central supplies of electricity, heating and water, according to local authorities.

The Russian TASS news agency reported on Saturday that 13 busses were moving to Russia, carrying more than 350 people, about 50 of whom were to be sent by rail to the Yaroslavl region and the rest to temporary transition centres in Taganrog, a port city in Russia’s Rostov region.

Russia’s Defence Ministry said this month that Russia had prepared 200 busses to “evacuate” Mariupol citizens.

RIA Novosti agency, citing emergency services, reported last week that nearly 300,000 people, including some 60,000 children, have arrived in Russia from the Luhansk and Donbas regions, including from Mariupol, in recent weeks.

Russia’s Defence Ministry said this month that more than 2.6 million people in Ukraine have asked to be evacuated.

Reuters could not immediately verify those reports.

Mariupol, a key connection to the Black Sea, has been a target since the start of the war on Feb. 24, when Russian President Vladimir Putin launched what he calls a “special military operation” to demilitarise and “denazify” Ukraine. Ukraine and the West say Putin launched an unprovoked war of aggression.

As Russia has sought to seize most of Ukraine’s southern coast, Mariupol has assumed great importance, lying between the Russian-annexed peninsula of Crimea to the west and the Donetsk region to the east, which is partially controlled by pro-Russian separatists.

(Reporting by Lidia Kelly; Editing by William Mallard)