{"id":12077,"date":"2018-11-21T16:31:49","date_gmt":"2018-11-21T21:31:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/spanish\/?p=12077"},"modified":"2018-11-21T16:31:49","modified_gmt":"2018-11-21T21:31:49","slug":"el-nuevo-presidente-de-mexico-the-new-president-of-mexico","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/spanish\/el-nuevo-presidente-de-mexico-the-new-president-of-mexico\/","title":{"rendered":"El nuevo presidente de M\u00e9xico (The New President of Mexico)"},"content":{"rendered":"

On December 1st, Mexico will experience a change in leadership.\u00a0El nuevo presidente de M\u00e9xico<\/strong> (the new President of Mexico),\u00a0Andr\u00e9s Manuel L\u00f3pez Obrador, will take office and succeed\u00a0Enrique Pe\u00f1a Nieto. Commonly known as AMLO, he handily won the election with 53% of the vote. In this post, I’ll introduce AMLO and give you a nice Spanish lesson through his campaign ads and victory speech.<\/p>\n

AMLO Background<\/h2>\n
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Image by Eneas De Troya from flickr.com.
Attribution 2.0 Generic (CC BY 2.0)<\/p><\/div>\n

AMLO may be the new President of Mexico, but he’s certainly not new to politics. His political career started back in 1976 as a member of the\u00a0PRI\u00a0 (Partido Revolucionario Institucional<\/em>).\u00a0<\/em>He left his home state of Tabasco for Mexico City to work at the National Consumers’ Institute, which he did until 1988.<\/p>\n

At that time, he resigned from his position and joined the dissenting PRD (Partido de la Revoluci\u00f3n Democr\u00e1tica<\/i>). In 1994, he ran for governor in his home state but lost to a PRI candidate. He soon made the national stage by defending the rights of\u00a0gente ind\u00edgena<\/em> (indigenous peoples) by blocking Pemex oil fields in protest.<\/p>\n

He would go on to become the Head of Government of the Federal District, which basically means mayor of Mexico City. When the presidential election of 2006 came around, he decided to throw his hat in the ring. In a controversial election, he lost by less than one point to\u00a0Felipe Calder\u00f3n. He did not concede, but instead led protests in the streets.<\/p>\n

AMLO tried again in 2012 only to lose even more convincingly. The current president,\u00a0Enrique Pe\u00f1a Nieto, won by about 7%. Once again, he rejected the results and called the election invalid. They say the third time’s the charm, and that has proven true for AMLO. He easily won the 2018 election, finishing with a nearly 30 point lead over the runner-up. Not surprisingly, he immediately accepted the results of this election.<\/p>\n

The Next President<\/h2>\n

The new president of Mexico is often described as a left-wing populist. He rode a wave of dissatisfaction with the status quo to victory, by promising to root out corruption and be a man of the people. In one campaign add, he said:<\/p>\n

“Voy a obtener la mitad del sueldo que recibe actualmente el Presidente de la Rep\u00fablica<\/em>.”<\/p>\n

I’m going to get half the salary that the President of the Republic is currently receiving.<\/p>\n