Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador delivers his victory speech in Mexico City's main square. Photo / AP
Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador delivers his victory speech in Mexico City's main square. Photo / AP
Fresh off a landslide victory, Mexico's newly elected leftist President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador pledged yesterday to "reach an understanding" with US President Donald Trump amid uncertain times for two countries that must seek consensus on everything from contentious trade talks to co-operation on security and migration.
Trump said the two leaders discussed topics including border security, trade and the North American Free Trade Agreement during a half-hour telephone conversation. "I think the relationship will be a very good one," Trump said.
In an interview with the Televisa news network, Lopez Obrador did not provide specifics on what an "understanding" with the Trump Administration might look like, except to emphasise the need for mutual respect and co-operation between the two neighbours.
"We are conscious of the need to maintain good relations with the United States. We have a border of more than 3000km, more than 12 million Mexicans live in the United States. It is our main economic-commercial partner," he said.
"We are not going to fight. We are always going to seek for there to be an agreement."
Meanwhile, members of the business and political elite who fiercely opposed Lopez Obrador's populist candidacy pledged to support his presidency in a loyal opposition, and the largely orderly vote in which his rivals conceded defeat gracefully - and quickly - was hailed as a win for democracy in the country.
With nearly three-quarters of the ballots counted, Lopez Obrador had about 53 per cent of the vote - the most for any presidential candidate since 1982, a time when the Institutional Revolutionary Party was in its 71-year domination of Mexican politics and ruling party victories were a given.
Lopez Obrador, who rode a wave of popular anger over government corruption to become the first self-described leftist elected to the Mexican presidency in four decades, has pointedly sought to reassure his respect for the constitution, private property and individual rights, vowing there will be no expropriations even as he pushes to "eradicate" endemic corruption.
He announced a team of advisers that includes prominent businessman Alfonso Romo - a friend of telecom magnate Carlos Slim, one of the world's wealthiest people - and widely respected politician Tatiana Clouthier, formerly a member of the conservative National Action Party, apparently seeking to signal that nobody should fear his promise of "profound change".
Business leaders who have openly warred with Lopez Obrador for years vowed to work with him and said fighting graft is an area where they see eye to eye.
"We have a lot in common as well as profound differences," said Gustavo de Hoyos, president of the Mexican Employer's Confederation, Coparmex. Prominent intellectual Enrique Krauze, who famously labelled Lopez Obrador a "tropical messiah" during his first presidential run in 2006, said via Twitter that he wishes "for his government to become an emblem of ethics for the world".
This Mexican football fan got to celebrate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador's victory but had to see Mexico lose to Brazil at the World Cup yesterday. Photo / AP
The next President is unlike most of his predecessors in many ways: Devoutly religious, he is a career activist instead of a lawyer, military officer or businessman, and the first President in a century to speak in a marked regional accent, from his native Tabasco state in Mexico's tropical lowlands.
Lopez Obrador plans to eschew the presidential mansion tucked into Mexico City's verdant Chapultepec park, preferring to remain at his modest home on the capital's south side and working from offices in the colonial National Palace downtown.
He also plans to tour the country without secret service protection, and to dissolve the guard corps that has protected presidents since 1926.
Lopez Obrador arrived at a hotel in downtown Mexico City for the first of two victory speeches on Monday in a bland white sedan befitting the "man of the people" image he has projected for over a decade.
He left in a decidedly more presidential luxury SUV - though he rolled down the windows to wave to adoring supporters - underscoring that the man who spent the last 12 years as a persistent government critic from outside the halls of power must now govern amid considerable challenges for the country, and deliver on ambitious but vaguely outlined campaign promises. Voters will expect him to put into concrete action his anti-corruption agenda, rein in rising killings and cartel violence that have stubbornly resisted the efforts of his two predecessors, and revive a sluggish economy that grew just 2.1 per cent last year.
Commonly known by his initials, "Amlo", Lopez Obrador has proposed measures such as a huge increase in infrastructure spending, but it's not clear how he can do that if he fulfils a promise not to raise taxes.
Lopez Obrador won thanks to overwhelming anger at the status quo and his success at presenting himself as an agent of change. But he's been vague on how he'll go about it.
"I think what happens now is Mexico begins to look for signs of what an Amlo presidency means, because we don't know right now," said Shannon O'Neil, senior fellow for Latin America studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. "What are the signals that he sends out to markets, to his political opponents, to Mexican society generally, of what he'll actually do when he comes into office?"
