Mexican Messiah: Andrés Manuel López Obrador (review)

This new work is a bibliographical account of Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s life and political career. Grayson’s research on the topic is detailed and exhaustive, including interviews with 140 individuals from López Obrador’s past and his present entourage, as well as reviews of local, national, and international news media. The author did not personally speak with the subject of his study, but López Obrador is notorious for his refusal—with rare exceptions—to grant interviews outside his public press conferences. Grayson also provides intimate details of Tabasco and Federal District (D.F.) politics, dynamics inside the Democratic Revolutionary Party (PRD), relations among Mexican parties, and of the political game in and under the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI).

According to Grayson, López Obrador learned the value of helping others at an early age from his parents. As a young man, he became interested in politics and development issues and, due to his understanding of local Tabascans’ needs, was recruited by the PRI. After several clashes with conservative priístas, he joined the fledgling PRD. In 1996, he was elected national party president and in 2000 Chief Administrator of Mexico’s Federal District. His proximity to the masses and creation of social programs to support them in the D.F. increased his popularity and notoriety to the extent that, by 2004, he was the front-runner for the 2006 presidential election. A dirty campaign by the opposition, combined with a series of errors in his own campaign, resulted in his loss by a slim margin. Refusing to accept his defeat as justifiable, López Obrador established an alternative government with himself as Mexico’s “legitimate president.”

While López Obrador is often labeled a populist, Grayson argues this is a misnomer and prefers to call the controversial politician a “messiah.” As much as López Obrador has certain qualities of a populist—railing against the establishment and its policies and offering hope for a different future—Grayson argues that he does more than represent the marginalized masses. He “‘incarnates’ their struggle” (p. 2) because he is one of their own, understands them, and speaks their language. The messiah is a moral and political savior, the essential goodness of whose mission makes him immune to attacks from critics. Opponents tend to underestimate his appeal because they fail to understand the power of his capacity to communicate with the masses. In fact, Grayson makes the case that López Obrador’s strategies are very similar to those used by Jesus. Both represent themselves as liberators; are thrifty; use catchy phrases to deliver moral lessons; are influenced by political icons; challenge the establishment; claim a personal integrity that eliminates the need for transparent action or debate; paint opponents as disbelievers; live and work close to the poor; achieve results others seem unable to attain (miracles); accept women into their closest circle; and rise to power despite being outsiders.

Although the messianic label and comparison with Jesus are interesting, the reader is left feeling that Grayson missed the opportunity to explore at least two other important angles of analysis. First, the author argues that López Obrador—as a messiah—is quite different from populists such as Hugo Chávez and Evo Morales, but does not expand on this assessment. Given the contemporary swing to the left and rise to power of new populist leaders in Latin America, a more detailed comparison would have been germane. Second, Grayson describes López Obrador as a man who is devoted to the poor, but uses corporatism and clientelism, is authoritarian, and eventually even became Machiavellian as a result of his attempts to work miracles through the PRD. Unfortunately, Grayson does not directly assess the reasons for this increasing pragmatism, other than pointing to messianic characteristics. Was the cause the internal dynamics of the PRD, the broader political context, or some combination of these factors?

Nonetheless...