President López Obrador will soon be able to adorn his home with a statue in his likeness.
A citizens’ group commissioned a statue of the president to celebrate his successes in office since he assumed the country’s top job in late 2018.
Artist Oscar Ponzanelli was commissioned by members of the civil society association Realidades Mi Mundo Mágico (My Magical World Realities) to make the life-sized statue of the leader commonly known as AMLO. He completed it in April.
Eduardo Abelardo, the association’s president, said the statue will soon be delivered to the president with the hope that it will be displayed at the National Palace, Mexico’s seat of executive power that doubles as López Obrador’s home.
The gift acknowledges AMLO’s “tireless work” in the fight against political corruption, his efforts to obtain COVID-19 vaccines and his dedication to the social well-being of the people of Mexico, Abelardo said in a video posted to social media.
“Followers of our president from all over the Mexican republic united in a group, and seeing his achievements and successes, we decided … to have a monument made with the slogan ‘no more political corruption, no to organized crime and yes to social well-being,’” he said.
But receiving the statue might not make the president as happy as they would hope. López Obrador said in 2019 that when he leaves the presidency, he doesn’t want any streets to be named after him or statues in his likeness to be erected in public places.
“… I don’t want anything to do with a cult of personality, … none of that,” he said.
However, there are already streets and even entire neighborhoods named after him in several states, the newspaper El Universal reported.
One Morena party politician proposed last year that the president’s home state be renamed Tabasco de López Obrador, but Governor Adán Augusto López Hernández rejected the idea, saying that the president “is not inclined to be honored with streets, monuments or anything like that.”
With reports from El Universal
