Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s term as president has concluded, and Mexico now has its first female president, Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo, who was sworn in on Tuesday.
AMLO, as the ex-president is best known, led the country for five years and 10 months after taking office on Dec. 1, 2018.
His term as president was an eventful one, marked by a range of significant events, including the COVID pandemic, during which the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Mexicans were attributed to the infectious disease.
Following on from our report on 12 changes that occurred in Mexico during López Obrador’s presidency, here is a look at 12 of the defining events of AMLO’s (almost) six-year term, or sexenio.
January 2019: Pipeline explosion in Hidalgo
On Jan. 18, 2019, less than two months after López Obrador was sworn in as president, the explosion of a petroleum pipeline in Tlahuelilpan, Hidalgo, claimed 137 lives.
66 dead, 76 injured after explosion, huge fire at Hidalgo gasoline pipeline tap
The explosion killed scores of local residents who were collecting gasoline that was gushing from the pipeline, which had been illegally tapped by fuel thieves.
The tragedy occurred amid a federal government crackdown on fuel theft.
In late 2019, López Obrador said that the pipeline explosion was the most difficult episode of his first year in office.
June 2019: Inauguration of the National Guard
López Obrador formally inaugurated the National Guard (GN) at a ceremony in Mexico City on June 30, 2019.
AMLO inaugurates National Guard, admits no advances yet in security
AMLO created the security force as a replacement for the Federal Police, which he argued was riddled with corruption.
The creation of the GN gave the president a security force he could truly call his own.
López Obrador set about molding the force to his liking, backing a bill passed by Congress in 2022 that allowed the civilian-led GN to be put under the control of the military.
After the Supreme Court ruled in April 2023 that the move was unconstitutional, he prepared a constitutional bill aimed at putting the GN back under military control, a move he argued was necessary to ensure that the force remained professional and free of corruption.
López Obrador signed the controversial bill into law on his last day as president after it was approved by both houses of Congress last month.
June 2019: Deployment of troops to stem migration
As part of an agreement with the United States that ended a threat from then-president Donald Trump to impose tariffs on all Mexican goods, the federal government, in June 2019, deployed a total of more than 20,000 federal security force members to detain undocumented migrants at Mexico’s southern and northern borders.
Troops on both borders: 15,000 seek migrants trying to cross US border
The deployment marked the commencement of a more vigorous enforcement policy against migrants traveling northward through Mexico toward the United States. The policy was widely seen as an attempt to stay on the right side of the U.S., Mexico’s largest trade partner.
But it didn’t please everyone.
Mexico’s former immigration chief, Tonatiuh Guillén López, resigned a week after the government reached the agreement with the United States.
Guillén had vowed that Central American migrants would receive kinder attention during the López Obrador administration.
October 2019: The ‘Culiacanazo’
On Oct. 17, 2019, security forces dealt a significant blow to the Sinaloa Cartel by capturing accused cartel leader Ovidio Guzmán López, one of the sons of convicted drug lord Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán.
Sinaloa Cartel sows terror in Culiacán after security forces detain El Chapo’s son
However, the capture was short-lived: Ovidio was released shortly after his arrest in Culiacán due to the violent response of the Sinaloa Cartel. The violence that ensued is known as the Battle of Culiacán or colloquially as the “Culiacanazo.”
López Obrador said in June 2020 that he personally ordered the release of Guzmán López, a move aimed at avoiding a bloodbath in the Sinaloa capital.
While the decision potentially saved lives, it made the president even more vulnerable to criticism that his government was soft on crime.
A second, more deadly “Culiacanazo” occurred in early 2023 after Ovidio Guzmán’s second and definitive capture.
From March 2020: The COVID pandemic
The COVID-19 pandemic had a major impact on Mexico: the deaths of more than 330,000 people were linked to COVID infections and the Mexican economy suffered its worst recession since the Great Depression in 2020.
Widespread outbreak of coronavirus is ‘inevitable,’ health authorities say
In addition, more than 1.5 million businesses didn’t survive the pandemic, the national statistics agency INEGI reported in late 2021.
López Obrador took a unique approach to pandemic management, urging Mexicans in March 2020 not to stop going out, even as other officials, including then Mexico City mayor Claudia Sheinbaum, implored people to stay at home. He seldom wore a face mask and claimed that an amulet would protect him from the disease (which he ended up contracting on repeated occasions).
Mexico never enforced a strict lockdown and the restrictions it did impose were much more relaxed than those of many other countries. The nation’s borders never closed to foreign travelers, making Mexico a popular tourism destination during the pandemic years. Among the visitors were people seeking to escape stringent COVID restrictions at home.
López Obrador and the federal government received significant criticism for their management of the pandemic, and Mexico ranked second to last among 98 countries in a “Covid Performance Index” developed by an Australian think tank to measure the effectiveness of pandemic responses around the world.
All the while, AMLO defended his government’s pandemic response, and early in the crisis he even claimed to have “tamed” the disease, only for it to go on and claim hundreds of thousands of lives.
To its credit, the government was proactive in procuring COVID vaccines from different countries around the world, and close to 80% of Mexicans agreed to receive the shots.
July 2020: Beginning of the USMCA era
The life of the North American Free Trade Agreement, or NAFTA, officially came to an end on July 1, 2020, when a new pact, the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, or USMCA, went into force.
AMLO, Trump celebrate trade agreement and ‘outstanding’ relationship
A week after the USMCA took effect, López Obrador traveled to Washington D.C., where he met with then-president Trump in the White House.
During his visit to the United States capital, AMLO described the USMCA as a “great achievement” and declared that it would help to generate more jobs and thus stem migration from Mexico to its northern neighbor.
With the USMCA in effect — and assisted by the China-United States trade war — Mexico became the world’s top exporter to the U.S. during López Obrador’s presidency.
June 2021: Morena dominates state elections
Another significant event during AMLO’s sexenio was the 2021 federal and state elections.
While Morena and its allies lost seats in the lower house of federal Congress (while retaining their majority), Morena dominated the gubernatorial elections, winning 11 of 15 contests.
Preliminary results give Morena at least 10 of 15 seats for governor
Morena thus became the undisputed leading political force in Mexico, no mean feat for a party founded by López Obrador less than a decade before the 2021 elections were held.
Morena’s victories in state elections during AMLO’s presidency not only cemented Morena as the nation’s foremost political power, but also ensured that constitutional reforms recently approved by federal Congress, including the controversial judicial reform, would be ratified by a majority of state legislatures — a prerequisite for the promulgation of constitutional bills.
2022-2024: The electoral reform fight
One of López Obrador’s major legislative initiatives was his attempt to redesign Mexico’s electoral system, including by replacing the National Electoral Institute (INE) and state-based electoral authorities with one centralized body.
Polls find mixed opinions about government’s proposed electoral reform
The president’s submission to Congress in 2022 of an ambitious constitutional bill to overhaul the electoral system triggered large protests against the proposal and in support of the INE.
The constitutional reform proposal failed to pass Congress, prompting AMLO to put forward a “Plan B” proposal that did win approval in early 2023. Critics of the legislation said that it would significantly weaken the INE, and more protests against electoral reform and in defense of the electoral authority were held.
In two separate rulings, the Supreme Court struck down the “Plan B” electoral reform, prompting López Obrador to make a second attempt to change Mexico’s electoral system via a constitutional reform.
There is a good chance that the electoral reform proposal sent to Congress in February will be approved early in the Sheinbaum era, given that the ruling Morena party and its allies are a dominant force in both the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate.
March 2023: Detention center fire kills 40 migrants
A fire on March 27, 2023, in a Ciudad Juárez detention center that claimed the lives of 40 migrants was described by independent federal Senator Emilio Álvarez Icaza as a “state crime” and López Obrador’s “Ayotzinapa,” a reference to the 43 students who were abducted and presumably murdered during the presidency of Enrique Peña Nieto.
39 migrants killed in fire at Ciudad Juárez detention center
There is no doubt that the deaths of the detained Central and South American men marked one of the most tragic events of AMLO’s sexenio.
Video footage posted to social media in the aftermath of the tragedy showed that migrants were left in a locked section of the provisional detention center in the Chihuahua border city despite the outbreak of a fire that ultimately claimed many of their lives.
National Immigration Institute (INM) director Francisco Garduño was formally accused of improper exercise of public service in connection with the deadly blaze. Other INM officials were accused of crimes including homicide.
López Obrador said in March 2023 that the death of the migrants in the Ciudad Juárez fire took a heavy emotional toll on him.
“This case has been very painful for a lot of people. And I confess it has pained me a lot, it has hurt me. I’ve had difficult moments [as president], the most difficult was the explosion in Tlahuelilpan,” he said.
“That was the hardest event, the one that affected me the most emotionally. And then this, this moved me, it broke my soul,” López Obrador said.
October 2023: Hurricane Otis devastates Acapulco
Hurricane Otis, a Category 5 storm that made landfall near Acapulco on Oct. 25, 2023, was the most destructive natural disaster during López Obrador’s presidency.
Hurricane Otis is strongest ever to hit Mexico’s Pacific coast
The hurricane — the strongest ever to hit Mexico’s Pacific coast — devastated Acapulco and claimed more than 50 lives, according to the disputed official count, with dozens more missing.
López Obrador announced a 61.3-billion-peso recovery plan for Acapulco and the neighboring municipality of Coyuca de Benítez a week after Otis slammed into the Guerrero coast.
But the recovery process has been slow, and hadn’t yet been completed when Hurricane John caused extensive flooding and claimed lives in Acapulco during AMLO’s final week in office.
June 2024: The election of Claudia Sheinbaum
There has been no greater endorsement of López Obrador’s term in government than the election of Claudia Sheinbaum as president on June 2.
Claudia Sheinbaum is elected the first female president of Mexico
Sheinbaum — who was widely considered AMLO’s preferred successor — received almost 60% of the vote, demonstrating that a large majority of Mexico’s citizens want the so-called “fourth transformation” of Mexico to continue.
The new president has pledged to continue and strengthen all of the López Obrador era programs and policies, and has given her full backing to the constitutional reform proposals AMLO sent to Congress earlier this year.
López Obrador has asserted that Sheinbaum is well prepared to take on the nation’s top job and reiterated that he will have no involvement in politics during his retirement at his ranch in Chiapas.
However, some observers believe that the ex-president will continue to exert influence on the government from behind the scenes, and attempt to ensure that his successor doesn’t deviate too far from the course he set the country on during his six years in power.
July 2024: The arrest of El Mayo
Former defense minister Salvador Cienfuegos, ex-security minister Genaro García Luna, former Pemex CEO Emilio Lozoya and ex-social development minister Rosario Robles were all arrested during AMLO’s sexenio.
Ismael ‘El Mayo’ Zambada and a son of ‘El Chapo’ arrested in Texas
But the arrest of Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada García in the United States on July 25 was arguably the highest-profile detention of a Mexican citizen during López Obrador’s presidency.
Zambada’s arrest at an airport near El Paso, and the alleged kidnapping that preceded it, has added tension to the relationship between Mexico and the United States, with López Obrador accusing the U.S. of involvement in — or at least knowledge of — a “completely illegal” operation to kidnap El Mayo and deliver him to U.S. law enforcement authorities.
In that context, AMLO asserted last month that the United States government is partly to blame for the wave of violence that has claimed scores of lives in Sinaloa in recent weeks as competing factions of the Sinaloa Cartel battle each other in a war that was sparked by the alleged kidnapping and arrest of Zambada.
President Sheinbaum, who has heaped praise on AMLO’s legacy and called him “Mexico’s best president,” will be left to deal with the precarious situation in Sinaloa and various other parts of Mexico that are plagued by violent crime.
By Mexico News Daily chief staff writer Peter Davies ([email protected])
