Sergio Alejandro Gómez

The result of the Mexican elections gives a broad mandate to the progressive candidate Andrés Manuel López Obrador to fulfill his agenda for change and confront corruption, violence and inequality with a strong state and effective social policies.

More than half of the electorate turned their backs on traditional parties and chose a politician opposed to the status quo .

At the same time, his victory sends a clear signal about the vitality of the movements that oppose neoliberalism in Latin America , contrary to the sentence of death that had been decreed prematurely against the progressive and leftist governments in the region.

The National Regeneration Movement (Morena), the party founded by López Obrador about four years ago, had to overcome the dirty war and the fear campaign of the right and big media.

Neither the black propaganda guru, the Venezuelan JJ Rendón, nor the specialists in manipulating public opinion through social networks, could channel the discontent of Mexicans with their political system and their desire for change.

The advance of the Mexican left, although it is the most notable, is not unique in the large electoral cycle of 2018.

Even in the countries where the right won this year, the progressive parties achieved remarkable results that lead us to envision a more difficult scenario for the next cycle.

This was the case in Chile, where the news in the first round was 20% of the votes reached by Beatriz Sánchez’s Frente Amplio. In spite of the victory in the ballot of the right-wing Sebastián Piñera, his government will be forced to work with opposition forces to carry out policies.

The result of the Chilean left has even more merit in the country that is shown as the showcase of neoliberalism in the region, where political opposition was systematically decimated by the military dictatorship of the past century.

In Colombia, one of the most conservative countries in the region, Gustavo Petro won a historic second place in the first round of the presidential elections and went to the ballot against the Uribista candidate, Ivan Duque.

Although the machinery of the Colombian right worked and Duque obtained victory, the eight million votes for Petro constitute the best result of the left in the history of the Andean nation, a few months after guerrillas of the FARC’s passage into civilian life.

The return to power of Uribism is a threat to peace signed in Havana and the current negotiations with the National Liberation Army (ELN) and the only hope is a strong coalition of different parties to shield the agreements. The good news is that Petro’s candidacy achieved 41% support from the electorate with a similar formula.

The South American giant and one of its main political leaders, Brazil, is called to the polls next October . Although Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, leader of the Workers’ Party (PT), is behind bars due to political persecution against him, he remains a favorite in the polls.

The economic recession and the adjustment packages applied by those who removed the legitimate president Dilma Rousseff from the Planalto Palace generate widespread rejection among the Brazilian population.

Even if the right gets a victory without Lula’s participation in the elections, the stability and legitimacy of the resulting government would be compromised.

In neighboring Argentina, the elections are scheduled for October 2019. But the months that lie ahead for the government of Mauricio Macri can play against him, to the extent that the economy has not acheived the expected results.

Neither the payments to the vulture funds nor the cuts or concessions to Macri’s private capital managed to convince international investors to bring their money to the southern nation, which seems a death sentence for the Argentine peso.

The agreement recently signed with the International Monetary Fund to achieve a cushion of security is too similar to the scenario before the neoliberal catastrophe of the last century to go unnoticed among the Argentines, who took to the streets to show their rejection.

The previous panorama is completed with the victory of the Bolivarian forces in Venezuela and the six million votes obtained for the re-election of Nicolás Maduro, in a context of external interference and economic war.

The resistance of the political movement initiated by Commander Hugo Chávez at the end of the last century was not in the forecasts of the right nor its sponsors in Washington, who counted the minutes to take control of the resources of the Andean nation.

In the same way, the illusions of an implosion of the Cuban Revolution after more than half a century of resistance failed, as part of the generational change in the highest levels of leadership. The call to continue building the socialism of the new president of the Councils of State and of Ministers, Miguel Diaz-Canel, when taking office last April, must have cleared any doubt.

For its part, the new Mexican government, led by López Obrador, will confront the aggressive policies of the Trump administration, its anti-immigrant rhetoric and plans to build a border wall.

In the south, Mexico has its cultural and historical space by nature, Latin America, whose real possibilities for development have been hindered by the inability to achieve effective integration and the neoliberal policies that impose deadly competition between countries with similar industrial and economic capacities. dependent on the export of a small group of raw materials.

The internal political dynamics and the way in which López Obrador navigates the wave of discontent among Mexicans will determine how far they can move forward with their anti-corruption agenda and social plans. But there is little doubt that it will face a hard resistance from the most favored sectors with the current state of things.

However, in the international arena, Mexico has the open road to play a more active role in favor of Latin American political and economic integration, a matter that, in the current context, may be a matter of national security for the Aztec nation.

At a time when the North American Free Trade Agreement is being renegotiated and Washington threatens to implement new protectionist policies, looking at the options in the neighborhood is a matter of common sense, regardless of the political flags that are raised.

López Obrador also has the possibility of becoming a moral reference in a country where violence and corruption are entrenched in the political system.

While corruption is an endemic evil that eats away at institutions and puts the political legitimacy of most Latin American countries in crisis, the left suffers more from the consequences of the banners it defends.

If he manages to regain the confidence of the Mexicans, the leader of Morena will have overcome one of the main lines of attack against the governments of the last progressive wave, especially those of Brazil and Argentina.

It is still too early to assure that the success of López Obrador and his alliance “Together we will make history” will open a new wave of regional transformations, but it speaks clearly that the search for alternatives to the unequal distribution of wealth and justice is far from disappearing from the Latin American political map.