There is one further pressure: he has become the most powerful Left-wing leader in the world. On his shoulders rest the hopes not just of tens of millions of Mexicans but voters in many countries who cleave to a revival of socialism as a means of addressing the many fissures of globalisation.

That is why the relationship between Obrador and Jeremy Corbyn is so important. The Labour leader, whose wife is Mexican and who has frequently visited Latin America, is a close friend. On the eve of his inauguration, Obrador made a public gesture of welcoming Corbyn to his country home in the southern state of Chiapas.

Mexico’s journey in the coming months will provide Corbyn with valuable lessons, to prepare him in the event of getting to power. In these times of deep cynicism and fear, the enthusiasm among a broad swathe of Mexicans is striking. They see in Amlo, his name’s initials by which he is best known, the answer to their prayers.

Further reading

Why we should welcome the populist victory in Mexico

By Charlotte Pickles

In his first few days in charge he has done little to dampen expectations. Launching a 100-point plan, no less, he vowed to reverse decades of free market liberal economics, put the interests of the poor and indigenous communities first, decentralise power to the regions and revive the oil industry. Five months of planning since his landslide victory in early July – perhaps the longest transition in any country’s constitution – have removed much of the surprise. Everyone has known for some time what is coming.

During a working trip at the end of August I was struck by the disdain in which Amlo is held by many professionals I met. Part of it is pure snobbery. Like Corbyn, he has spruced himself up, but he still doesn’t cut it as a suave, jet-setting leader in the style of previous presidents. Part of the ill will is simple economics. This is a deeply divided society. Polanco and Condesa, the two swankiest districts of Mexico City, resemble London’s Knightsbridge and Notting Hill. Meanwhile, the grinding poverty for millions is visible everywhere.

In a second trip over the past few days, some of the wealthier were prepared to give him the benefit of the doubt, assuming that he won’t really go after them, and if he does, they have ways of spiriting their money out. So far the Mexican peso and stock market have fallen sharply but there has been no dramatic run – yet.

Suggested reading

Jean-Luc Mélenchon: a smarter Jeremy Corbyn

By John Lichfield

The silver-haired son of a shopkeeper has tried to become Mexico’s president twice before. In 2006 he lost by just 0.5% of the vote, claiming that he had been robbed and setting up a tented protest village for months. On his second attempt in 2012 he lost by a more convincing 7%. Some thought his time was up.

In his manner of governing, he has pledged to be as different from his centre-Right predecessor Enrique Pena Nieto as possible. On Monday, on his first morning in charge, he despatched the presidential Boeing 787 jet (more lavish, it is said, than Air Force One) back to California for safekeeping until a suitable oligarch can be found to buy it. Amlo plans to fly economy on commercial airliners, and he plans to get rid of the 60 planes and 70 helicopters on the government’s books. He has refused to live in the presidential compound, Los Pinos (the Pines), and has opened it up to the public. He has promised to work 16 hours a day, starting with a 6am security briefing and a 7am press conference.

He is proud to call this austerity – but not the British version where the general population, particularly the poorer, shouldered the biggest burden. He is going after government spending on luxuries. No meetings in restaurants or posh hotels. Only in plain government offices.

One of Amlo’s most symbolic decisions, taken during the transition, was to hold a referendum on plans for a new airport, designed by Norman Foster. This was a waste of money; plane travel, he implied, was a plaything of the rich. A majority voted to scrap it, but the turnout was tiny (one million out of 45 million who voted in July’s election) and the ballot was run not by the electoral commission but by his Morena party, raising fears of ballot stuffing.

Electoral promises will be kept. The people are sovereign. Sound familiar? Amlo appears a curious mix of Brexit-era and Trumpist populism.  Trump couldn’t stand Pena Nieto (the feeling was mutual) and tweeted hearty congrats to his successor. On the chummy level there is every chance the two will get on just fine. Here are two folksy, call-it-as-it-is, leaders; convergence of the angry Right with the angry Left. But that’s before they start to deal with the detail on trade and immigration.

Suggested reading

Peterson, Corbyn and the rise of the kidult

By Jenny Mccartney

There is also a comparison to be made with the smooth Davos-man Blair, a man who could not be more different to the new Mexican president. Not in policies or behaviour, but expectations. To watch Amlo’s victory speech at Zocalo, Mexico City’s colonial-era vast central square, evokes the less iconic but equally powerful setting of the Royal Festival Hall in May 1997. Things can only get better was the soundtrack. People hugged, believing a new Camelot had arrived.

Blair’s thesis, which propelled him to power with a similar landslide, was to portray the art of the possible as radical. New Labour would initiate change by stealth; he would keep on his side a country that the young prime minister believed was big C and small C conservative.  We know what eventually ensued: the financial crash and the end of centrist consensus, giving rise to the radical Left and Right.

No matter what era, however, and how it is dressed up, politics is the art of compromise, of marrying high principle with messy pragmatism. The inevitable conclusion is that he will disappoint. He has to, by the nature of the job. That is why, in his inaugural address, he asked the people for patience.

And that’s why it’s so crucial for Corbyn. Both men romanticise past Latin American revolutionaries (including the current regimes in Venezuela and Cuba). The reality of office will be more mundane. How much can radical Left-wing leaders really change within the confines of democracies and market systems? When the going gets rough, do they plough on or do they retrench, to the consternation of those voters who yearned for radical change? It will all be about managing expectations. Getting rid of presidential jets is the easy part.

The landslide victory of Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador – or Amlo as he known – brings to an end the long-run dominance of Mexico’s pro-market PRI and PAN parties.

Although shaky on specifics during the campaign, Lopez Obrador has promised to transform Mexico. His critics fear a shift towards socialist autocracy, leading to ruinous decline à la Hugo Chavez. Supporters see a socialist saviour who will deliver the fair, safe and universally prosperous future they dream of. It is the populist tale of our age. His acceptance speech, though, hints at a more moderate middle way.

But regardless of the course he charts, the Mexican electorate has sent a resounding message: the status quo must end, change is needed.

What remains striking in this era of political realignment is the continuing failure of establishment politicians and pundits to adjust to this new normal. How many ‘upsets’ will it take before they accept that the demand for ‘change’ isn’t some mad cry for revolution, but the reasonable demand of electorates with legitimate grievances?

For while the severity of the three key issues which drove voters into the arms of Lopez Obrador are on a scale we in the West can hardly imagine, each of those drivers is nonetheless also behind the rise of populist politics in Europe and America.

Like UKIP’s Nigel Farage, Podemos’ Pablo Iglesias and Five Star’s Beppe Grillo, Lopez Obrador has presented himself as the ‘outsider’. And like his fellow populist leaders, he has pledged to overthrow the establishment. His criticism of the “mafia of power” proved a powerful rallying call in a country where corruption is endemic – votes are bought, public monies embezzled, and public contracts awarded to cronies.

Ordinary Mexicans, especially those outside the big cities, have had enough of an elite focused on lining their own pockets. It’s a familiar story.

Further reading

How the Left failed flyover Spain

By James Bloodworth

In Spain last month, corruption forced the resignation of Spanish prime minister Mariano Rajoy, and a more general backlash against the establishment has seen the rise of socialist populist party Podemos. In Italy, the populist Five Star Movement has built its platform in opposition to the corruption at the heart of Italian politics.

Across Western democracies, the people are revolting against what they see as self-serving, clubby elites. When Trump promised to “drain the swamp” we all knew what he meant – even if he doesn’t appear to be following through with it.

Lopez Obrador’s promise to clean up politics also came with a commitment to invest in social programmes – funded by the savings from his anti-corruption crusade. Echoes, perhaps, of the domestic investment promised by Brexiteers once the EU gravy train is halted.

Which brings us to the second driver of voter behaviour: poverty and inequality.

By Mexico’s own measure, half of its population live in poverty. In a country with a relatively new and burgeoning middle class, the gap between the haves and have-nots is stark. And, as is the case in many countries, that economic division is mirrored geographically, with high levels of deprivation in the South of Mexico in comparison with a relatively prosperous North.

Just as stagnating wages, insecure work and high levels of income and wealth inequality have called into question the efficacy of capitalism in the West, many in Mexico are questioning the wisdom of economic liberalisation and free trade.

NAFTA (the free trade agreement between America, Mexico and Canada signed in 1993) may have led to billions of dollars of foreign investment for Mexico, and a dramatic surge in exports, but not everyone benefited.

Further reading

We know Trump hates NAFTA but what's free trade meant for Mexico?

By Charlotte Pickles

Border cities (and big business) boomed, while the rural South suffered – by 2007, Mexico had experienced a net loss of two million farming jobs. Average incomes in Mexico barely changed under NAFTA, and six in ten Mexicans still work in the informal economy. The higher paying, higher skilled jobs that were created didn’t neatly replace those jobs that were lost – a problem all too familiar to Rust Belt America and deindustrialised Northern Britain.

It is unsurprising that Lopez Obrador’s promise to redistribute the wealth and rein in big business proved so popular – just as Jeremy Corbyn’s promise did in Britain. Even the staunchest defender of free trade must recognise that globalisation has its limits, and domestic policy should seek to mitigate its harsher impacts.

The third issue driving the desire for change was, in a country notorious for its drug cartels and the violence they perpetrate, security. In 2017, Mexico recorded its highest death toll since records began. 2018 isn’t looking any better – almost 3,000 people were murdered in the single month of May, that’s pushing 100 deaths per day.

Further reading

Is Sweden about to have its Trump moment?

By Tino Sanandadaji

Successive PRI and PAN governments have proved powerless to stem the violence with their law and order ‘solutions’ (PAN President Felipe Calderon’s military-led war on the drug cartels saw the death toll rise). Lopez Obrador is pledging a new approach: an amnesty for drug traffickers. Crazy as that might sound, for a terrorised nation, exhausted from decades of failed initiatives, a change of tactic is exactly what people are looking for.

Even here there are parallels with Europe and America, where, although for very different reasons, security is a growing concern. A recent YouGov poll asked citizens in 11 European countries what they thought the top two issues were facing the European Union: they were terrorism and immigration (though domestic issues were of much greater concern at a personal level).

The devastating spate of terrorist attacks through 2016 and 2017 appeared to show that governments could not perform the first priority of any state: keeping its citizens safe. And populist leaders were quick to jump on those fears – France’s Marie Le Pen has railed against “Islamism”, and Trump made a Muslim travel ban a key campaign pledge.

In Germany, the 2016 New Year’s eve Cologne attacks triggered the anti-immigration backlash that has helped propel AFD into the centre of German politics. And the populist Sweden Democrats are gaining ground, helped by rising violence which is being tied to immigration.

Significant portions of electorates across the West have lost faith in the establishment’s approach to security and are turning to more radical options.

Mexico’s problems are the West’s writ large.

Lopez Obrador’s 30-point win over his nearest rival appears to give the Leftist a clear mandate for change, but it is not yet clear that his party – Moreno – will win a majority in congress. If they do, it will be the first time that a Mexican president has commanded a legislative majority since 1997, and his ability to implement a more radical set of reforms will be significantly increased. And that, of course, is scaring the establishment horses.

In the aftermath of the British vote to leave the EU in 2016, the British Pound took a hit, just as the weakening of Angela Merkel’s grip and the rise of the far-right in last year’s German elections saw the Euro dip. In Mexico, as the scale of Lopez Obrador’s victory has become apparent, the Peso wobbled. The global markets – and their Davos backers – do not like disruption.

But disruption is exactly what voters in Mexico, and across Western democracies, are demanding. Disparaging the call for change as ‘populism’ is arrogant and counter-productive. If, instead of hurling insults, the establishment and one percenters had paid their fair share of tax, invested in re-skilling and decent wages, and acted like responsible economic stewards rather than drunken casino goers, the status quo may just have been palatable.

Until they realise that, populist leaders – like Lopez Obrador – will keep winning. And that, of course, is the beauty of democracy.

Further reading

How Latin America's Pink Tide turned

By James Bloodworth