MEXICO CITY (AP) – Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador held a massive rally in Mexico City’s main plaza attended by tens of thousands of people on Saturday.
Though it was called to commemorate Mexico’s 1938 expropriation of the oil industry, many of those attending the rally on Saturday agreed that it was the de-facto opening salvo to the 2024 elections that will choose the president’s successor.
It may be one of the last rallies that will be headed by López Obrador, who is known for his folksy style and charisma.
The process to nominate a presidential candidate for his Morena party will begin later this year. After that, the party’s candidate is likely to take centre stage. But most agree that few of the presidential hopefuls can match the popularity of a president whose approval ratings are routinely above 60 per cent. That is especially true for the Morena party, which was largely built around López Obrador.
Alberto Martínez, 59, said he hoped Mexico City Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum would be the party’s nominee. “We like her education, her prudence,” Martinez said. But he would settle for anyone Morena choose.
Most polls show Sheinbaum as the frontrunner in the race, followed by Foreign Relations Secretary Marcelo Ebrard.
“The important thing is for the ideology of López Obrador to continue,” Martínez said.
“This train is already in motion, somebody just to get aboard and drive it”, he added.
Former President Lázaro Cárdenas, one of López Obrador’s heroes, delighted Mexicans when he expropriated the largely foreign-owned, privately operated oil industry in 1938. One of López Obrador’s main policy initiatives has been to save the state-owned oil company that Cárdenas founded from crushing debt and low oil production.
Those attending the rally in the Zocalo wholeheartedly approved of López Obrador, who has struck a nationalist stance, drastically reducing the ability of United States anti-drug agents to operate in Mexico.
