00:00
So the president of Mexico,
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Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador or Amlo,
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as many people know him has been called both Mexico's Hugo
00:10
Chavez and Mexico's Donald Trump.
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Oh, he loves attention and often says things just to troll
00:21
So thankfully here to explain how the election is going is Professor
00:25
Rudy Alamillo of Western Washington University.
00:32
Hi. Thank you for having me.
00:34
Thank you for coming on.
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So we wanted to ask you what is am low's track record
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as president. So Amlo is certainly a populist in the
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vein of, of a Donald Trump or,
00:45
or a Hugo Chavez has this strong anti elite message.
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And when we compare Mexico's presidents in the most democratic era.
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until Amlo came into office in 2018,
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many of them were focused on strengthening democracy and not so much
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on delivering social services to the people in Mexico.
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And when Amlo came in as this outsider,
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he not only established this very broad safety net by
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establishing pensions for the elderly pensions for the disabled apprenticeship programs for
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young people, but he did that by in fact cutting the
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salaries and benefits of politicians.
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So day one in office,
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he cut his own salary by 60%.
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And then his party passed a law saying that no member
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no one who works for the government can have a higher salary
01:34
than the president. So immediately we see all of these elites
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taking like these these salary pay cuts.
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And I think relative to someone like Hugo Chavez or even Donald
01:42
Trump here in the United States,
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Amlo certainly walks the walk and and delivers a lot more on
01:47
these promises. So for his supporters in Mexico,
01:50
he has been doing a fantastic job these last six years
01:55
Yeah. So he took a pay cut but there's still like
01:57
allegations that he's taking money from like,
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you know, drug traffickers.
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Do you think have always responded at all to that fact
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or those allegations I think am low has,
02:08
has done an excellent job of presenting his critics as,
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as folks who are attacking him because of all the changes that
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he's tried to make in Mexico with regards to,
02:19
to bringing up the the poor and middle classes at the expense
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of the wealthy. So any criticism you you levy at Amlo
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whether it be a sexist comment he made about someone running
02:28
for president or, or ties supposed ties with,
02:31
with Narco traffickers, Amlo can just easily just kind of like
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shrug it off his shoulder and say no,
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that's not me. That's,
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that's what my rivals are saying.
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And in this case where we have,
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you know, specific allegations being made by the DEA it's very
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easy for Amlo to say,
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the United States doesn't like me.
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The DEA is somehow working on behalf of the United States
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in order to, to tarnish my legacy.
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So am low's opponents are certainly trying to capitalize on.
02:58
But Amlo supporters, I think when,
03:00
when you look at folks who have been the the beneficiary of
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of these substantial social spending programs,
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nothing is really going to to tarnish their image of him
03:09
because he's just delivered so much to the people in a way
03:12
that no real president in Mexican history has going back until at
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least like the 19 fifties.
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I wanted to ask one last question.
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It's only been about 20 years since Mexicans really had multiple parties
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and candidates to choose from.
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How is democracy working out?
03:28
That, that's an excellent question.
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I think when Mexico transitioned to a democracy,
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one of the the hard lessons for Mexico to learn coming from
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a dictatorship was that in democracy,
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as we know here in the United States,
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things move very, very slowly because you have divided government when
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the dictatorship of the pri was in power from the 19 twenties
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until about the year 2000.
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If they wanted to get something done,
03:51
they just passed it and it was done.
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It was a single party dictatorship.
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But the interesting thing is from about 1998 until 2018 when Amlo
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came into office, no one party in Mexico controlled the president
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and both chambers of the legislature.
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So there was divided government for about 20 years,
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which essentially meant that that a lot of nothing got done in
04:11
Mexico until Amlo came in.
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So Amlo is not only doing lots of things,
04:16
but compared to all of his predecessors,
04:18
he looks like someone who's delivering on democracy in a way that
04:21
that no one else really has.
04:23
It's very insightful. Thank you so much,
04:25
Professor Rudy. We really appreciate your time.
04:28
Thank you for having me.
04:28
It was a great time now.
04:30
When can people find you on social or?
04:32
absolutely, you can find me on Twitter and,
04:35
to everything else will be on Twitter.
04:37
It's it's at my name,
04:38
so at Rudy Rudy Alamillo A L Ami Llo.
04:47
Take care. Good one.
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