Mexico Election 11 - Messianic Politicians and Reality

Picture from one AMLO site, originally uploaded by drtaxsacto.

I found this picture taken at the rally which Andres Manual Lopez Obrador held in the Xocalo in Mexico City last week. AMLO has made all sorts of claims which, to this point, no serious observer of Mexican politics seems to support. As I have read about this process, as I have noted in a previous post, this looks a lot like the Gore effort in 2000 - although the Gore people may have had a bit more to beef about (I think their claims were ultimately wrong but Florida politics are afterall Florida politics).

What possible explanations can one have for this seemingly irrational behavior? I can think of at least three. First, AMLO could genuinely believe that he was robbed of the election. That is the least credible, in my mind. Second, he could be driven by the messianic notion of leadership that seems to have been present in his mayorship of Mexico City. He had a lot of odd quirks - calling press conferences early in the morning was the most prominent - which suggest that he has a great deal of personal energy in this - more than is normal. A lot of his behavior is like a petulant child. When you make the comparison to Gore - there are a lot of similarities. Both believe in the absolute rectitude of their positions. They are on a mission. In this case even the facts are not likely to dissuade AMLO. A third explanation could be that AMLO does not believe in his own populist rhetoric - he is ultimately contemptuous of people who do not agree with him and thus, a minor thing like a clean election that did not go in his favor is an inconvenience. This is about power and implementation of his correct vision of the world. Leaders like that are not often successful - although they may achieve some electoral success - politics - even the evolving processes in Mexico involve give and take - but when you know the absolute truth - that give and take is an annoyance.

I am relatively convinced that AMLO will be unsuccessful - but as we have seen in other movements like this - if the last explanation is the correct one - he will continue to try to disrupt the Constitutional processes. A mark of where any democracy is - is whether that democracy will ultimately deny this kind of behavior a forum. In the end, in 2000, the Supreme Court rejected the arguments of Mr. Gore and he went away - although a lot of people still have the woulda, coulda, shouldas. But I believe the threat of AMLO is larger. I also believe that the Mexican voting public will ultimately reject these kinds of attempts to drive the system away from democratic expressions. That was a variation of the old system in Mexico. Although President Fox was not as revolutionary as many expected him to be, I believe what was started in 2000 in Mexico, continues. One could argue that electoral politics in Mexico are a lot like the dot.com crash. In that instance many of the artifacts of the "revolution" in technology fell by the wayside, but the implementation of technology in many areas continued. In this instance, although Fox did not move the country as far as some expected, the underlying changes remained and continue to grow.