Andrés Manuel López Obrador

Andrés Manuel López Obrador (Spanish: [anˈdɾes maˈnwel ˈlopes oβɾaˈðoɾ] ; born 13 November 1953), also known by his initials AMLO, is a Mexican former politician, political scientist, and writer who served as the 65th president of Mexico from 2018 to 2024. He served as Head of Government of Mexico City from 2000 to 2005.

Born in Tepetitán, in the municipality of Macuspana, in the south-eastern state of Tabasco, López Obrador earned a degree in political science from the National Autonomous University of Mexico following a hiatus from his studies to participate in politics. He began his political career in 1976 as a member of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI). His first public position was as director of the Indigenous Institute of Tabasco, where he promoted the addition of books in indigenous languages. In 1989, he joined the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD), becoming the party's 1994 candidate for Governor of Tabasco and national leader between 1996 and 1999. In 2000, he was elected Head of Government of Mexico City. During his tenure, his crime, infrastructure, and social spending policies made him a popular figure on the Mexican left. In 2004, his state immunity from prosecution was removed after he refused to cease construction on land allegedly expropriated by his predecessor, Rosario Robles. This legal process lasted a year, ending with López Obrador maintaining his right to run for office.

López Obrador was nominated as the presidential candidate for the Coalition for the Good of All during the 2006 elections, where he was narrowly defeated by the National Action Party (PAN) candidate Felipe Calderón. While the Federal Electoral Tribunal noted some irregularities, it denied López Obrador's request for a general recount, which sparked protests nationwide. In 2011, he founded the National Regeneration Movement (Morena), a civil association. He was a candidate for the Progressive Movement coalition in the 2012 elections, won by the Commitment to Mexico coalition candidate Enrique Peña Nieto. In 2012, he left the PRD after protesting the party's signing of the Pact for Mexico and prior to helping Morena to become a political party. As part of the Juntos Haremos Historia coalition, López Obrador was elected president after a landslide victory in the 2018 general election.

Described as being center-left, progressive, a left-wing populist, social democratic, and an economic nationalist, López Obrador was a national politician for over three decades. During his presidency, he promoted public investment in sectors that had been liberalized under previous administrations and implemented several progressive social reforms. Supporters praised him for promoting institutional renewal after decades of high inequality and corruption and refocusing the country's neoliberal consensus towards improving the state of the working class. Conversely, López Obrador has been criticized for contributing to democratic backsliding, failing to adequately respond to the COVID-19 pandemic, and attempting to appease drug cartels. He left office in September 2024, succeeded by his chosen successor Claudia Sheinbaum, and retired from both electoral politics and public life.

Early life

Andrés Manuel López Obrador was born in Tepetitán, a small village in the municipality of Macuspana, in the southern state of Tabasco, on 13 November 1953. He is the firstborn son of Andrés López Ramón (son of Lorenzo López and Beatriz Ramón) and Manuela Obrador González, Tabasco and Veracruz-based merchants. His younger siblings include José Ramón, José Ramiro, Pedro Arturo, Pío Lorenzo, and twins Candelaria Beatriz and Martín Jesús. His maternal grandfather José Obrador Revuelta was a Cantabrian who arrived as an exile in Mexico from Ampuero, Spain, while his maternal grandmother Úrsula González was the daughter of Asturians. Through his paternal grandparents, López Obrador is also of Indigenous and African descent.

López Obrador attended the only elementary school in town, the Marcos E. Becerra school, managed by the Seventh-day Adventist Church and named after the Mexican poet of the same name. During afternoons, he helped his parents at the La Posadita store. López Obrador began middle school in Macuspana but finished it in the state capital of Villahermosa, where his family moved in the mid-1960s and opened a clothes and shoe store called Novedades Andrés. On 8 June 1969, when he was 15 years old, his brother José Ramón López Obrador died from a gunshot to the head. According to Jorge Zepeda Patterson's Los Suspirantes 2018, José Ramón found a pistol, played with it, and it slipped out of his hands, firing a bullet into his head. The Tabasco newspapers Rumbo Nuevo, Diario de Tabasco, and Diario Presente presented a story where they were both playing around with the pistol and that Andrés Manuel fired it by accident. According to Zepeda Patterson, Andrés Manuel became "taciturn, much more thoughtful" following the incident. López Obrador finished high school and, at age 19, went to Mexico City to study at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM).

He studied political science and public administration at the UNAM from 1973 to 1976. He returned to school to complete his education after having held several positions within the government of Tabasco and the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI). In 1987, he received a degree in political science and public administration after the presentation of his thesis, Proceso de formación del Estado Nacional en México 1821-1867 (Formation Process of the National State in Mexico 1821–1867).

He lived in the Casa del Estudiante Tabasco during his college years on Violeta Street in the Guerrero neighborhood of Mexico City. The institution was financed by the administration of Tabasco governor Mario Trujillo García through efforts of the poet Carlos Pellicer, with whom López Obrador began discussing. There was empathy between the two because the young man raised his concern for the Chontal Maya. After the meeting, the poet invited him to his senate campaign during the 1976 elections. His university professor, Enrique González Pedrero, was another figure that influenced López Obrador's political trajectory.

After attending school from 1973 to 1976, he returned to his native Tabasco, where he held various government positions and was a professor at the Juárez Autonomous University of Tabasco.

Personal life

During his early career, he met Rocío Beltrán Medina, a sociology student, who suggested López Obrador embrace the progressive wing of the PRI. They eventually married on 8 April 1978. They had three sons: José Ramón López Beltrán (born 1981), Andrés Manuel López Beltrán (born 1986), and Gonzalo Alfonso López Beltrán (born 1991). Beltrán Medina died on 12 January 2003 due to respiratory arrest caused by lupus, which she had suffered for several years.

On 16 October 2006, he married Beatriz Gutiérrez Müller, who had worked in the Mexico City government during his tenure as Head of Government of Mexico City. Together they have one son, Jesús Ernesto López Gutiérrez (born 2007).

During his first presidential run, some news reports identified López Obrador as a Protestant; in a television interview, he self-identified as Catholic. In March 2018, he declared, "When I am asked what religion I adhere to, I say that I am a Christian, in the broadest sense of the word, because Christ is love and justice is love."

López Obrador has held a variety of nicknames throughout his life, including El Molido, El Americano (The American), La Piedra (The Rock), El Comandante (The Commander), and the most popular among them is El Peje, named after the common Tabasco fish, the pejelagarto.

A baseball fan, his favorite sports team is the St. Louis Cardinals.

López Obrador was named one of Time magazine's 100 Most Influential People of 2019.

On 24 January 2021, he announced that he had tested positive for COVID-19.

Early political career

Member of the PRI

He joined the PRI in 1976 to support Carlos Pellicer's campaign for a Senate seat for Tabasco. A year later, he headed the Indigenous People's Institute of Tabasco. In 1984, he relocated to Mexico City to work at the National Consumers' Institute, a federal government agency.

Member of the PRD

López Obrador resigned from his position with the government of Tabasco in 1988 to join the new dissenting left wing of the PRI, then called the Democratic Current, led by Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas. This movement formed the National Democratic Front and later became the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD).

In 1994, he ran for the governorship of Tabasco but lost to PRI candidate Roberto Madrazo. López Obrador gained national exposure as an advocate for the rights of indigenous people when, in 1996, he appeared on national TV drenched in blood following confrontations with police for blocking Pemex oil wells to defend the rights of local indigenous people impacted by pollution.

He was president of the PRD from 2 August 1996 to 10 April 1999.