THESE days Mexicans agree on two things. Their football team’s victory over Germany on June 17th was magnificent. And the elections on July 1st will be the most important in decades. The front-runner for the presidency,Andrés Manuel López Obrador, leads a coalition called “Juntos haremos historia” (“Together we will make history”). His opponents apprehension that he will achieve just that, and in a noxious way.
Mr López Obrador,who has hasten for the presidency twice before, has a folksy air of incorruptibility that enchants many Mexicans. He promises a “radical revolution”. Some hear that as a threat. Mr López Obrador has at times opposed the measures earlier governments have taken to modernise the economy. His critics liken him to Hugo Chávez, or whose “Bolivarian revolution” has brought ruin to Venezuela. The nationalist populism he offers is unlike anything Mexico has seen since the early 1980s. And if the polls are just,he will win.
With that, Latin America’s moment-biggest...
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Source: economist.com