Mexican Revolt FadingMaimon Schwarzschild

Here is a thoughtful assessment of Manuel Lopez Obrador’s attempt at revolution in Mexico, from Canada’s left-wing “New Socialist”:

López Obrador has taken a great gamble by calling for a Constituent Assembly and the launching of a new Republic while he seems to have the support of only perhaps a quarter of the Mexican people. López Obrador seems to be marching toward the Rubicon, but the question is, is he really prepared to cross over and will plebeian Mexico follow him?

Andrés Manuel López Obrador has proclaimed that Mexico s institutions are rotten and must be replaced…  AMLO is speaking the language of revolution, calling for a new rival governmental power and for a peaceful revolution, but the question remains whether his own followers and a significant part of the population of Mexico are prepared for the kind of action that would be necessary to bring down the Fox-Calderón government, much less overthrow the state.

López Obrador does not appear to have the sheer numbers of supporters throughout Mexico to challenge the state….  [A]lmost 2/3 of all voters voted for the two more conservative candidates, while only about 1/3 supported a program of reform based on increased social welfare. Even if López Obrador was cheated out of a million votes as some have alleged, he would still have had only a somewhat large plurality but nothing near a majority of support. While some people who voted for López Obrador as a reformer might be moved to adopt a position of revolutionary opposition to the state if they felt their votes were stolen, one would suspect that not all PRD supporters would take that position, while very few from other parties would join him.

Perhaps some on the far left would support López Obrador in a battle over democracy, but their numbers are few. No far left revolutionary party even qualified to appear on the ballot. Moreover, the explicitly anti-capitalist and anti-electoral Other Campaign of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation vehemently opposed López Obrador during the campaign, and is unlikely to support him now. Mexico s revolutionary left appears to be smaller and less significant than it was in the 1960s-1980s.

All honour to author Dan La Botz, and to “New Socialist”, for the sober realism of this, and the complete freedom from rhetorical posturing.  Read the whole thing.

It’s interesting that – for now, at least – the international Left doesn’t seem to be investing the sort of fervent support in Lopez Obrador that it once did in Chile’s Salvador Allende, in the Nicaraguan Sandinistas, or for that matter in Fidel Castro.