Politics: AMLO, the courts and the CSOs square off
As the economy continues to sputter, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s government is running into more and more counterweights and political pushback, with each instance posing new legal obstacles for the government’s signature initiatives.
Some of the problems must be regarded as self-inflicted errors, such as AMLO’s recurring overtures to business leaders to cooperate to encourage investment being immediately followed by his conspicuously slamming the door on ways to rebuild the sense of certainty and confidence his administration has consistently undermined. An example of this was when he signed a pact with leading business associations just last week, and within hours, announced he was cancelling all private sector bidding on oil and gas concessions. Or his constantly promising to properly manage public finances, including an ostensible effort to strengthen a greatly debilitated Pemex, and then plunging ahead with the same policies that have rattled investors and ratings agencies alike.
In response, top business leaders appear divided over whether to remain engaged as a way to try and temper the president and his decisions (whose advocates have little to show for their efforts seven months into the administration), and those who have decided to take the government head on.
The latter camp has promoted waves of court challenges to government decisions regarding everything from laying off and slashing the pay of public servants, to eliminating subsidies to childcare centers attending to the children of low income mothers, to the cancellation of the partially built Mexico City airport at Texcoco to build an alternative facility at the Santa Lucía air force base. Those opting for the more confrontational approach have much more to show for their efforts, including a slew of restraining orders on all these policy matters.
The administration and its supporters have responded by trying to personally discredit those promoting these legal filings and their motives. With many more suits still working their way through the courts, we could see an intensification of the conflict pitting the executive against the judicial branches, or an effort by officials to pressure judges into submission.
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