The political testament of Andrés Manuel López Obrador
The Mexican president’s last book is a kind of farewell, and many have called it the political testament of Andrés Manuel López Obrador.
And yes, media such as El País, have considered that the last book of the president of Mexico is a declaration of his experience and the final paragraph of a stage in his life as a politician.
¡Gracias! (Planeta, 2024), is the name of the recent bibliography, and has the tone of a farewell letter and a The political testament of Andrés Manuel López Obrador.
What has been called the political testament of Andrés Manuel López Obrador consists of some 500 pages, in an autobiography of his struggle in the left.
The political testament of Andrés Manuel López Obrador has an air of reflection on his role in Mexican history, the decisions he made, the mistakes he made; he has defined his political credo and has left what seems to be a last will for Claudia Sheinbaum, his possible successor.
López Obrador has recalled his moments of weakness, writes frankly about the former presidents emerged from the PRI and the PAN, and has confirmed that, at the end of his term, he will retire from the public eye.
“I offer my adversaries sincere apologies; I never thought of hurting any person and I retire without hating anyone,” writes López Obrador in the closing of his book.
Read more: Armed children in Guerrero: Mexico.
The political testament of Andrés Manuel López Obrador.: An ode to his trajectory
It is undoubtedly a farewell to one of the most controversial figures in Mexican politics, but one who would retire with a lot of popular support.
“At the end of September I will retire and I will not participate in anything public again. Whether I did well or not, history will tell,” he says in the book.
AMLO has published more than a dozen books, he tells of his beginnings as a politician in the seventies and why he has always been inclined towards the causes of the poor.
In his political creed, which he has baptized Mexican Humanism, the poor and the people, sometimes synonymous, have a central place.
López Obrador defines that the poor, in general, “are more sincere, loyal, less demanding and do not require many explanations; they are humble, do not believe they are wise, are close to their emotions and feelings, and at the same time have an accurate instinct to distinguish between those who truly love and respect them, and those who try to deceive them, even if they despise them”.
The president affirms that one must bet on an alliance with the poor, who “do not usually betray” to push for transformative changes in the country.
In a coded message to Sheinbaum, Morena’s presidential standard bearer, López Obrador argues that she should not “zigzag” or “half measures”, but remain faithful to the movement’s principles.
In the political testament of Andrés Manuel López Obrador, the president argues that he was the victim of electoral fraud on two occasions: in the 2006 and 2012 elections.
Andrés Manuel López Obrador Always faithful to his principles
Despite this, he says, he did not abandon the civil struggle (although at some point he thought of giving up, he confesses, when he was going through “days of desolation, discouragement and depression”).
López Obrador recalls the time when, involved in the resistance movement, he suffered a heart attack and was on the verge of death.
López Obrador points out that the main contribution of his movement has been the revolution of consciences, having managed to politicize the majority of Mexicans: “we contributed to change the mentality of broad sectors of the Mexican people”.
The president defends his belief in civil, and not armed, struggle as the engine of change.
“We bet that with the awareness of broad sectors of the population it would be possible to achieve similar results, but peacefully, with fewer sacrifices and greater depth,” he argues in Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s political testament.
In 2018, López Obrador offered a truce to his predecessors in the Executive, but now he has dedicated harsh criticism to them in his book.
The one he has been most harsh on is former President Felipe Calderón, of the PAN, whom he accuses of having come to power in 2006 thanks to electoral fraud and then, in 2012, when he left the Government, of having intervened to tilt the result in favor of Peña Nieto, of the PRI.
López Obrador has a very bad perception of Vicente Fox, the first president of the democratic alternation (2000-2006).
“Since the first president of Mexico, Guadalupe Victoria, we have never had someone as mediocre and crazy as Vicente Fox”.
López Obrador calls him “perverse” and a “traitor to democracy”.
