AMLO Is No Chavez
Joseph Contreras and Phil Gunson write in Newsweek International about Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez, his “pro-Cuba, anticapitalist, Bush-baiting agenda” and the popularity it is bringing him with the poor throughout Latin America. Fair enough. But then they try to make Chavez the vanguard of a trend that also includes the frontrunner in next year’s Mexican presidential race:
That trend now threatens to engulf Mexico, where the leader of the left-wing Democratic Revolution Party, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, continues to enjoy a comfortable lead in the polls ahead of the presidential election scheduled for next July.
Putting AMLO in the same boat as Chavez strikes me as a bit of a stretch. Contreras and Gunson describe Chavez as having declared war on capitalism. Meanwhile, AMLO’s chief economic adviser, Rogelio Ramirez, is a member of numerous of those most lucrative of capitalistic institutions, namely corporate boards. As reported by Bloomberg last week, Ramirez uses these boards as a perch from which to calm his fellow captains of industry who are worried that AMLO might run up the deficit. AMLO may be counting on the votes of the very poor to get him the presidency, but he’s not being much more of a firebrand populist in the Mexican context than John Edwards is in the American context. Yet most of the popular American press - and the Mexican press, for that matter - likes to paint AMLO as the second coming of Chavez, instilling panic into the hearts of business leaders. Conflict makes for a better story, and goodness knows Chavez has been good for conflict.
Perhaps I should not be surprised that the financial press paints a more nuanced picture. Global Finance reports:
While AMLO’s political party’s name might strike fear into the hearts of investors, his policies may not be quite so revolutionary. “I don’t think he’ll do anything crazy,” says John Welch, chief Latin America economist with Lehman Brothers. “We’ve already seen some signs that he’s moving to the center.” In the end, AMLO may become another Lula, heavy on leftist rhetoric before the election but a pragmatist after, several investors and analysts believe. Says Alfredo Thorne, the Mexico City-based chief of Latin America research for JPMorgan Chase, “To be honest, it may just be political rhetoric.”
Meanwhile, Lucy Conger of the Institutional Investor writes:
Yet AMLO is a polarizing figure — and an enigma. To some critics on the right, he is a dangerous left-wing demagogue who wants to saddle Mexico with grandiose public works projects, add to the tax burden and swell the country’s debt.
“The business community is scared of another lost decade, another crisis and, should López Obrador’s avowed economic policy fail, the political consequences in terms of a class-based clash,” warns Luis Rubio, president of the Centro de Investigación para el Desarrollo, a Mexico City research and policy center that keeps tabs on business sentiment.
To many others, AMLO is a visionary who grasps how to achieve vital social objectives, such as reducing Mexico’s grinding poverty — four out of ten Mexicans live on less than $2 a day — through imaginative but practical economic methods that mark him as a pragmatic populist.
A quick Google search reveals no instances where Hugo Chavez and the phrase “pragmatic populist” have appeared in the same sentence.
October 28th, 2005 at 11:55 pm
Venezuelans feel down realizing how badly is understood the inner situation of affairs, the res publica, abroad. To be an oil producing country is not a blessing at all. Is for outside countries Venezuela only a pawn in a strategical chess tableau? How many years and deaths you need to understand the ugly reality? We Venezuelans are tired of unceassingly expressing one and again the same: this psychopatic and narcissistic personality is going after the only thing appeals him: power, domination. Forgive the trash theories, forgive the oil and nuclear manipulations, he wants to be the supreme leader of Latin America, if possibly, of Third World, if possibly….So he uses everything at hand for manipulating for the best his image outside, while here into Venezuela behaves like the tammer with the most cruel whip blows you can imagine. Already have cornered his oppositors, have spoiled them from legal wrights, human wrights, have disoriented them with military strategies, have occupied all the ranges of civilian life, being either public or private schools, Educational laws, Justices in every instance, Medical and health assistance, (next comes Private Medical Centers), Labor Unions besieged by creating paralleling ones, the Congress, completedly submissive at his orders,
more than seven times changed its internal procedures rules, even the commerce and food markets at the verge of losses because the unfair competence of Government owned chain stores, and General Prosecutor, People Defender, the General Controller of the Republic completely submissive, the Supreme Court, its Law recently changed for add more High Judges, and, yes, you guessed, are his companions. What more?
October 29th, 2005 at 8:48 am
It’s nave to believe Chavez can in any way bring positive reults for the general welfare of people. He has divided everything and accomlished nothing worthwhile but promoting himself using OUR (Venezuelan Citizens) resourses.
John Hintwehuber and Wolfgang Popp in their work: Are You a Strategist or Only a Manager (HBR) state that when dealing with the competition, a Company should not concentrate on what it does but in theis “Corporate Strategy,” meaning not see what Chavez does but what type of background will conditions his actions.
Thus: Chávez comes fvrom the Military, so his tendency is Beaurocratic. Beaurocracy has some suggestive traits:
They do not respond to those they are supposed to serve but to that who pays them
They produce nothing worthwhile, and when they have nothing to do, they produce work, that is, thins that create barriers and add no value
The have a tendency to gro and grow, under the understanding that the bigger they are, the more difficult it is to eliminate them
Furthermore, the Military is a vertical command system, it doesn’t hear, it abuses power.
Thus, Chávez is doing likewise and will do likewise.
Make no mistake, he is clever andis beeing helped by many communist that have learned to wave the mud, avoid extintion and cling to whatever power they can cling to.
Contrary to general belief induced by propaganda, Cháves is not helping the needed and the poor, he is just a modern populist using them and giving false hopes. The only he has endured the opposition of the Venezuelan people is his grip on the income that Oil exporting generates, and manipulating the uneducated whih abound in Latin America.
I have to give him some credit on something, opening our eyes to the way we have behaving in the last 40 or 50 years: he is in power because we allowed inept politicians of all sorts dictate out future, instead of involving ourselves actively in designing and leading the process towards a real progressive society.
Caracas, Venezuela
October 30th, 2005 at 1:34 pm
Mr. Chavez has brought back fears from distant past. I myself have hesitated to give my opinion even on this medium, while pondering whether his infamous and lawless circulos bolivarianos (equivalent to Hitler´s “brown-shirt boys”) get a hold of this mail, and get to me or anyone of my family members now or later when Mr. Chavez declares himself president for life or simply a “legal dictator” as he once told Patricia Janiot, of CNN, that he was poised to do.
Things are real bad around here. And we haven´t seen anything yet. Private property? forget it! Once the National Assembly becomes two thirds red (qualified majority), things will quickly start rolling towards a cuban style comunism.
The sad part of this national drama is that the majority of citizens abroad, particularly in Europe, are not aware of what´s cooking and how we got here.
Look for instance, Newsweek´s story. Somewhere in it, reference is made to Mr. Chavez having won the Aug 2003 national referendum. Nothing so far away from the truth!!
He lost 39 to 61%. But then, thanks to Messrs. J. Carter, C. Gaviria and G. Cisneros, for reasons that history will eventually bring to light, chose to declare victorious the loser.
In my view, Mr. Carter, representing the Carter Center and seemingly leader of the group, made a horrendous mistake, comparable to those political blunders that led the US to support Sadam Hussein, Gadaffy (of Libia), Ossama Bin Ladeen and others alike, to later on having to confront them after causing irreparable damage to innocent citizens world wide, including the United States of America.
December 25th, 2005 at 2:18 pm
[…] As I have argued before on this blog, Mexican presidential candidate Andrés Manuel López Obrador is a victim of this sort of simplistic categorizing, often getting mentioned in the same breath as Hugo Chavez. Yet the political contexts in which they operate are dramatically different. […]
March 10th, 2006 at 5:34 am
Please review de “Reforma” Mexican News Paper, of 9 de March 2006.
Search for column “Templo Mayor”. Chávez help´s whit money to Obrador Campaing.
Encontraras que no es “Chávez”, pero si soporte económico a su campaña por parte de el. El es peor, pues “Chávez†da una cara realista de lo que es, Obrador no.
La hipocresÃa es un elemento clave. ¿Por que teme tanto debates con los otros candidatos?.
También existe soporte de Cuba, y para divertirse mas fue del PRI. Investiga más de este personaje o reconoce que eres parte de la guerra hipócrita que el trama.
(Recuerda a Fidel, lo que decÃa que era y lo que es.)
Atte.
Ciudadano Mexicano.
May 28th, 2006 at 5:15 pm
I would like to state some things:
I agree that the political contexts of Venezuela and Mexico differ greatly.
Nor the media or the panistas have shown evidence that proves AMLO received money from Chávez and I mean “real” evidence. If there is such an evidence, they would have already used it against López Obrador, wouldn’t they?
The dirty war we have observed during the political campaign just proves the efforts the right wing has made to stop López Obrador’s successful campaign. Y finalmente añado que no formo parte de una “guerra hipócrita” simplemente soy simpatizante del candidato de la alianza por el bien de todos.
p.s. I’m sorry for my bad english.