The risk for the president is that the Houston mansion becomes the new symbol of his rule. But local elections in six states in June may be a tougher test.ĪMLO “governs through symbols,” says Mr Vivanco. He seems certain to win a self-engineered recall referendum on his rule in April. “For the first time he’s losing his monopoly of the public conversation.” Some of the president’s middle-class supporters peeled away in mid-term elections last year. “I think it’s a turning point,” says Martín Vivanco of Movimiento Ciudadano (Citizens Movement), a newish social-democratic party. Mexico’s largely discredited opposition now senses an opportunity. Despite all this, most Mexicans still think that he is on their side and his critics are not. The economy has been slow to recover from a slump in 2020, and violent crime remains rampant. His government’s handling of the pandemic has been poor. He has little else to show, apart from an increase in cash transfers to some poorer groups. The president insists he is carrying out a moral “transformation” of Mexico, and that his critics represent vested interests threatened by this. The president is “furious” because he hasn’t been able to shake off the scandal, said Mr Loret. Others saw intimidation in a country where five journalists have been killed so far this year and where extortion and kidnapping are shockingly common.
Mr López Obrador claimed he was acting in the name of “transparency”. Although the journalist said that the figure was inflated and included earnings from different years, the details listed by the president could only come from the tax agency. The next day he clarified that he was not breaking ties formally.Ī week later he claimed that Mr Loret de Mola was “a corrupt mercenary” who earned 35m pesos ($1.7m) in 2021. First he launched a rant against Spanish companies, saying that they had “plundered” Mexico during the three previous “neoliberal” governments and that he would “pause” relations with Spain until the end of his term in 2024. Since the news broke last month, at his hours-long morning news conferences he has followed the populist textbook of distracting attention by inventing enemies of the people. He is an adviser for one of the president’s pet infrastructure projects, a tourist train that will run close to several of Mr Chávez’s hotels in the Yucatan peninsula. The company is owned by the children of Daniel Chávez, a businessman close to AMLO. The first son, who has since moved to another mansion near Houston, said that he lives from his earnings as a lawyer for a property developer. And the photos of the capacious mansion with a home cinema, a large swimming pool and gardens hardly convey austerity. But Mr López Beltrán has yet to demonstrate that he paid the rent. Mr Schilling, who left Baker Hughes in January 2020, told Bloomberg that he had no responsibility for his firm’s work in Mexico and did not know that his tenant was the president’s son. Mr López Obrador (or AMLO for short) insists that his son has no influence on the government and that “there is no proof of anything at all” against him.
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