Mexico’s president – a man who made his name blockading Pemex petroleum installations in southeastern Tabasco state – has been criticised over his support for a state law prohibiting protests.

On Monday, Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s partisans in Tabasco approved legislation that metes out stiff punishment for protests, including prison sentences of up to 20 years for blocking access to businesses and 13 years for impeding work on public works projects.

It comes just as the man known as Amlo announced the start of construction on an $8b refinery in Tabasco – a project he wants completed in four years and for which an environmental impact study is still pending.

“It’s not an anti-protest law. It’s an anti-extortion reform. This is very clear,” said Tabasco government secretary, Macros Medina Filigrana.



López Obrador echoed those sentiments in his Monday press conference, saying Pemex and its contractors had previously been extorted by individuals charging fees on roads leading to petroleum sites.

Critics see the law as hypocritical, given Amlo’s history of beckoning supporters to blockade streets and refusal to say a sharp word toward renegade sections of the teachers’ unions – whose protests have collapsed some southern cities and occasionally the capital.

“It’s hypocritical for someone who made his entire career on a reputation for protests and blockades,” said Gerardo Priego, an opposition politician in Tabasco. “Who’s going to define if it’s extortion or not? Won’t his buddies be protesters and his opponents extortionists?”

The hashtag #LeyGarrote – “club law” – trended in Mexico, along images of a young López Obrador covered in blood after confrontations with soldiers from past protests.

López Obrador started his political career as state delegate for the Mexican Indigenous Institute and organised communities, whose lands were spoiled by Pemex pollution and weren’t being compensated. He later led long marches to Mexico City after scandalous local elections in the mid-1990s. His supporters once camped out on the capital’s grand Paseo de la Reforma for six weeks in 2006 to protest against an unfavourable election outcome.

López Obrador swept elections in 2018, claiming the presidency and majorities in Congress, after capitalising on discontent over corruption and promising to end repression against protesters, human rights and environmental defenders and journalists.



Several states with governors accused of massive acts of graft previously approved anti-protesting laws – such as Quintana Roo, home to Cancún, where politicians claimed protests would harm tourism.



Amlo’s approval rating remains on more than 60%, though he has stoked disquiet on the left – of which he claims to be a part – with moves such as announcing austerity measures, creating a militarised police to calm the country and attacking critical media outlets.



“He benefitted from marches and protests and investigative journalism that revealed corruption or ineptitude on the part of politicians he once opposed,” said Javier Garza, a political analyst in the city of Torreón and former newspaper editor. “Now that he’s president, protests and journalistic investigations are going against him – and he doesn’t like it.”



