Mexico: A left-wing firebrand cools the rhetoric and embraces NAFTA
MEXICO CITY — While the countries re-negotiating the North American Free Trade Agreement huddled quietly in a Mexico City hotel last week, a neighbourhood away a noisy political event unfolded that could affect the agreement’s fate.
A boisterous throng of 10,000 gathered a few blocks away to approve the platform for the left-wing nationalist political party currently leading the polls for Mexico’s July presidential election.
That very election has prompted insiders to declare a sense of urgency in competing NAFTA talks — before Mexico’s voters potentially hand the presidency to a left-wing anti-establishment party whose leader famously held anti-NAFTA views.
That candidate is Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador — a household name here, known universally by the acronym AMLO. He’s also a former two-time presidential candidate and ex-mayor of Mexico City, and currently leads numerous polls, suggesting he could be elected in a few months.