44 The Americas The Economist February 19th 2022
“W
hat arewe fighting for? To end
corruption...The formula is sim
ple but effective—to govern by example.”
So said Andrés Manuel López Obrador
when he was campaigning for his coun
try’s presidency. He was right that Mex
icans were fed up with the racketeering
and scandals that had marred previous
governments. Since coming to office in
2018, he has made personal austerity a
symbol, abolishing the presidential
guard, moving out of the spacious offi
cial residence and flying around the
country in economy class. Largely as a
result, his approval rating in opinion
polls hovers at 60%.
That is why recent allegations con
cerning his eldest son, José Ramón López
Beltrán, are potentially gamechanging
for the president. According to an in
vestigation by Mexicans Against Corrup
tion and Impunity, a watchdog, and
Carlos Loret de Mola, a journalist, Mr
López Beltrán and his wife lived for a year
until July 2020 in a mansion in the sub
urbs of Houston owned by Keith Schil
ling, a former manager of Baker Hughes,
an oilservices company. During that
period Baker Hughes received business
worth $194m from Pemex, the state
owned oil giant into which the president
has poured extra public money.
Mr López Obrador (or amlofor short)
insists that his son has no influence on
the government and that “there is no
proof of anything at all” against him. Mr
Schilling, who left Baker Hughes in
January 2020, told Bloomberg that he
had no responsibility for his firm’s work
in Mexico and did not know that his
tenant was the president’s son. But Mr
López Beltrán has yet to demonstrate that
he paid the rent. And the photos of the
capacious mansion with a home cinema,
a large swimming pool and gardenshardly convey austerity.
The first son, who has since moved to
another mansion near Houston, said that
he lives from his earnings as a lawyer for a
property developer. The company is
owned by the children of Daniel Chávez, a
businessman close to amlo. He is an
adviser for one of the president’s pet infra
structure projects, a tourist train that will
run close to several of Mr Chávez’s hotels
in the Yucatan peninsula.
The president clearly senses danger.
Since the news broke last month, at his
hourslong morning news conferences he
has followed the populist textbook of
distracting attention by inventing ene
mies of the people. First he launched a
rant against Spanish companies, saying
that they had “plundered” Mexico during
the three previous “neoliberal” govern
ments and that he would “pause” relations
with Spain until the end of his term in2024. The next day he clarified that he was
not breaking ties formally.
A week later he claimed that Mr Loret
de Mola was “a corrupt mercenary” who
earned 35m pesos ($1.7m) in 2021. Al
though the journalist said that the figure
was inflated and included earnings from
different years, the details listed by the
president could only come from the tax
agency. Their publication is a crime. Mr
López Obrador claimed he was acting in
the name of “transparency”. Others saw
intimidation in a country where five
journalists have been killed so far this
year and where extortion and kidnap
ping are shockingly common. The presi
dent is “furious” because he hasn’t been
able to shake off the scandal, said Mr
Loret. “He’s lost it.”
The president insists he is carrying
out a moral “transformation” of Mexico,
and that his critics represent vested
interests threatened by this. He has little
else to show, apart from an increase in
cash transfers to some poorer groups.
His government’s handling of the pan
demic has been poor. The economy has
been slow to recover from a slump in
2020, and violent crime remains ram
pant. Despite all this, most Mexicans still
think that he is on their side and his
critics are not.
Mexico’s largely discredited opposi
tion now senses an opportunity. “I think
it’s a turning point,” says Martín Vivanco
of Movimiento Ciudadano (Citizens
Movement), a newish socialdemocratic
party. “For the first time he’s losing his
monopoly of the public conversation.”
Some of the president’s middleclass
supporters peeled away in midterm
elections last year. He seems certain to
win a selfengineered recall referendum
on his rule in April. But local elections in
six states in June may be a tougher test.
amlo“governs through symbols,”
says Mr Vivanco. The risk for the presi
dent is that the Houston mansion be
comes the new symbol of his rule. He
will strain mightily to prevent that.Allegations about his offspring could undermine Mexico’s president BelloThe mansion and the first son
part blamed the party’s earlier resort to tac
tics like barring new Canadians from wear
ing niqabs when taking the citizenship
oath, which offended Muslims. “That
doesn’t mean there isn’t a backlash”
against immigrants, says Mr Johnston. “It’s
lurking in the Conservative grassroots.”
Those grassroots are more influential
than they used to be, but have not yet
seized control. Unlike in the United States,
regional parties are not subsidiaries of na
tional ones. Mr Ford is aligned with the na
tional Conservatives but he belongs to the
Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario.The federal Conservatives cannot control
regional legislatures as America’s politi
cians do. Independent commissions draw
the boundaries of electoral districts, avoid
ing the gerrymandering that contributes to
polarisation in the United States. The share
of fundamentalist Christians in the elec
torate is much smaller, which gives politi
cians less scope to mobilise voters pas
sionately opposed to social change.
Few Canadians wish their politics were
more like those of their southern neigh
bour. Twothirds say their system of gov
ernment is better, according to the Confederation of Tomorrow, an annual survey.
Just 5% say the United States has a better
system. In 1991 preferences were almost
evenly divided.
The culprit for this immense shift in as
sessments of the two systems, the survey
says, is America’s increasingly polarised
politics, culminating in Mr Trump’s presi
dency. Mr Trump’s endorsement of the
convoy may therefore encourage Canadi
ans to reject the sort of politics it repre
sents. The antivaxx uprising is “a spasm”,
Mr Johnston thinks. “It’s unsettling,it’s
embarrassing, but it’s not existential.”n