Andrés Manuel López Obrador

Andrés Manuel López Obrador (born 13 November 1953) is a Mexican politician who currently serves as the 65th President of Mexico since 1 December 2018.

Andrés Manuel López Obrador in 2018

Quotes

• People are tired of so much damn fraud.
  • Statement during the daily press conference on February 04, 2019.

• If the price of imported gas rises, we will shift to using non-gas fired electric plants to provide needed electricity.
  • Andrés Manuel López Obrador (2022) cited in "World Reaction to the Invasion of Ukraine" on Wilson Center, 24 February 2022.

• We considerate it terrible that, because of the interests of economic and political elites, since the beginning of the legitimate presidency of Pedro Castillo, an environment of confrontation and hostility was maintained against him, leading him to take decisions that have served his adversaries to remove him.
  • Statement on the 2022 Peruvian self-coup attempt, taken from "Mexico, Argentina, Bolivia, Colombia Back Peru’s President Castillo, Condemn ‘Anti-Democratic Harassment’". Scheerpost. December 14, 2022.

• Such vision Commander Fidel Castro had! While the neoliberals [in Mexico] were preventing the training of doctors, in Cuba they were driving the training of doctors, and consolidating one of the best health systems in the world . . . Conservatives in Mexico and around the world can say whatever they want, but they will never, ever be able to counteract the teaching, the example of solidarity, of brotherhood that the revolutionary movement and its leaders have left Cuba.
  • "Mexico’s AMLO announces campaign against US blockade of Cuba, denounces neoliberalism", Geopolitical Economy Report, February 13, 2023.

• In our time, there is still a mixture of oligarchy and democracy, or a simulated and mediated democracy. That is to say, in some countries, the oligarchy reigns with the façade of democracy. For example, how can we talk about democracy if the elites dominate, and not the majorities? How can we talk about democracy if there is no separation of economic power and political power? How can we talk about democracy if, in recent times, there has been the most offensive concentration of wealth in a few hands in the history of the world? The fortune of a minority has increased without limits, without any moral concern, while there are a billion human beings who live on less than a dollar a day.
  • "Mexico's AMLO calls out US 'oligarchy' at Biden's 'democracy' summit", Geopolitical Economy Report, March 30, 2023.

Quotes about Andrés Manuel López Obrador

• I did not see that op-ed, but I think that Jorge puts it very well there, that — you know, that this was something that Mexico agreed to. And to me, that was surprising, given the history of López Obrador and what I thought he would stand for and do once he was in office.
  • Julian Castro responding to Juan González (journalist) asking "obviously, Mexico has to participate in this “Remain in Mexico” policy. And I don’t know if you saw the op-ed piece that Jorge Ramos, the co-anchor of the national Univision News had in The New York Times this week, where he said Mexico may not be paying for the wall, the Trump wall, but Mexico has effectively become the wall and is participating in this attempt of President Trump to prevent more people from coming into the country. I’m wondering about your sense of the Mexican policy under President López Obrador?" during Interview on Democracy Now (2019)

• what did the Washington Post say about all this? It compared López Obrador to Josef Stalin, literally, in print, saying that he had used Stalin’s methods of terrorizing the population in order to get in power. Huh? What? And the New York Times editorial was not much better. It accused him of gross, grave irresponsibility. The man is demanding a count of the vote to prove who won, since even with the first election commission, it was still only at 0.5 percent, less than 0.6 percent — less than 1 percent. I mean, it doesn’t take a whole lot of cheating to do that...I don’t think López Obrador is any raging radical. I mean, his politics are not super radical. I think he’s probably a populist, more accurately described, but he certainly is leaning to the left, and he’s certainly, I think, a better — [he] would take more steps to end the poverty and so forth in Mexico than Calderón would.
  • Elizabeth Martinez, Oral History Interview (2006)