MEXICO CITY ��Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador's decades-long road to the presidency of Mexico culminated with his inauguration Saturday as he received the presidential sash in a ceremony at the nation's lower house of Congress.
Lopez Obrador took office five months after cruising to victory in July's election. He promises to fight corruption, tackle Mexico's soaring violence, and reconsider a rush to privatization. His victory followed failed candidacies in 2006 and 2012.
In brief remarks Saturday he gave a stinging rebuke of Mexico's "neoliberal" policies of recent years.
The assemblage of global statesmen at the inauguration _ including U.S Vice President Mike Pence and British Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn _ mirrored the myriad public personas of Lopez Obrador. Few observers could bet with confidence which side of the president will eventually emerge triumphant: the populist who recently defied investors by scrapping a $13 billion airport, or the conciliator who appeared immediately after his landslide election victory.
As a matter of practicality he may switch between the two, although that would pose its own risks for an economy that's overcome decades of crises with the aid of policies that favor slower, steadier growth. If he chooses unpredictability, Lopez Obrador doesn't have very far to look for inspiration: he's already been compared by some to U.S. President Donald Trump in style, if not in policies.
Trump, and his threat to close the 2,000 mile U.S.-Mexico border to stop migrant caravans, will probably be the first major test of his presidency. Lopez Obrador could go on the offensive as he did at the start of his presidential campaign, lambasting Trump for violating immigrants' rights, or he could try stopping Central Americans from crossing into the U.S., risking a backlash at home for kowtowing to a U.S president who's repeatedly insulted Mexicans.
Either way, he can no longer remain on the sidelines about Trump as he's done during the long transition period.
Many investors had hoped Lopez Obrador would prove to be a pragmatic leftist, prioritizing the poor without jeopardizing the nation's hard-won reputation for economic prudence. To some degree the jury is still out _ his budget proposal due this month will help clarify his intentions. Mexico's incoming finance minister has given some reason for money managers to offer Lopez Obrador the benefit of the doubt by pledging to target the largest primary surplus since 2008.
But the big question is whether Lopez Obrador can regain the trust of investors spooked by his airport decision. For a president who aims to govern with a populist bent, with plans to hold referendums on almost every major decision, it may not even be in his interest to do so.
To some extent, Lopez Obrador represents Mexico's greatest shift in political power in living memory. While Vicente Fox of the National Action Party broke the Institutional Revolutionary Party's (PRI) eight-decade hold on presidential power in 2000, he left many of the same economically liberal technocrats in place. He also remained beholden to a Congress where the PRI held the most votes.
By contrast, the president-elect has brought in many new faces at the federal level, and his political party's majority in both houses of Congress concentrates a great deal of power in the hands of Lopez Obrador's upstart Morena party.
Unlike the PRI, which spent decades as an institution permeated with different cliques and power bases, Morena began as a movement centered on one man _ Lopez Obrador _ after he lost the presidential election to Enrique Pena Nieto in 2012. Almost everyone in the party and his government owes their positions to him, raising fears about a return to an imperial presidency where Congress acts as a mere rubber stamp.
It's been a rocky road from the election to the inauguration. Financial markets took a beating over the past month after Lopez Obrador cited the results of a referendum organized by his party to cancel the $13 billion airport project. That triggered the biggest peso rout since the 2016 U.S. election. Then stocks tumbled to a 4 { year low last week as Morena stuck to its proposal to cut bank fees, even after Lopez Obrador tried to walk back the plan.
Mexico's plan to open energy development to private investment has also come under a cloud after incoming energy minister Rocio Nahle told local media that she'll suspend oil auctions until 2021, while respecting investments already made by companies. Juan Carlos Zepeda, Mexico's hydrocarbons regulator, quit after reports of pressure from Nahle, although he denied that was the reason.
