Mexico Set To Inaugurate New President Lopez Obrador

Mexico City, Dec 1 (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 2nd Dec, 2018 ) :Anti-establishment leftist Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador will be sworn in as Mexico's next president on Saturday -- a dramatic change in direction for a country fed up with corruption, poverty and crime.

The man widely known as "AMLO" is promising a sweeping "transformation" after 89 years of government by the same two parties.

Not everyone is persuaded by the brand of change he is promising: critics accuse the sharp-tongued, silver-haired leader of being an authoritarian radical, and Mexican stocks and the peso have plunged in recent weeks.

But Lopez Obrador, 65, has an undeniably strong mandate: he won a landslide victory in the July 1 elections, together with large majorities in both houses of Congress for his coalition -- led by the party he founded just four years ago, Morena.

It was the biggest win for any president, and the first for a leftist, since Mexico transitioned to multi-party democracy in 2000.

As Congress opened the joint session where he will take the oath of office, Lopez Obrador left his modest home in Mexico City -- where he plans to reside, shunning the presidential residence -- and, traveling in his usual white Volkswagen Jetta, made his way through a sea of supporters toward the Chamber of Deputies.

Jose Angel Mejia, 38, was in the crowd outside the lower house to fete the new president.

"It's a historic day, I still can't believe it," he said, raising his eight-year-old son's arm in the air in celebration.

"We're going to have a change at last." After slipping on the presidential sash in the usual ceremony, Lopez Obrador plans to go to Mexico City's central square, the Zocalo, for a second ceremony unlike any presidential inauguration in Mexican history: he will receive an indigenous chieftain's staff as shamans perform a purification ritual with incense and flowers.

- Change in style - The new president inherits a sticky set of problems from his unpopular predecessor, Enrique Pena Nieto.

They include endemic corruption, gruesome violence fueled by the war on drug cartels, and the caravan of 6,000 Central American migrants camped at the US-Mexican border -- not to mention the minefield that diplomacy with Mexico's giant northern neighbor has become under President Donald Trump.

Lopez Obrador, a former protest leader and Mexico City mayor, has been short on specifics regarding his plans for all of the above.

What he is promising, first and foremost, is a presidency like no other.

Vowing to lead his anti-corruption, pro-austerity drive by example, he has turned the presidential residence into a cultural center, plans to sell the presidential jet and fly commercial instead, wants to cut his own salary by 60 percent and has eliminated the presidential security detail.

- Pressure from Trump - A massive crowd of supporters is expected at the chieftain's staff ceremony, where, in between a series of concerts by famous musicians, Lopez Obrador will give a second speech from the National Palace.

That long-disused seat of power is where the new president plans to install his offices -- sending a message on the kind of change he represents.

The palace, with a history that dates to Aztec times and walls covered in murals by iconic painter and communist Diego Rivera, is a far cry from the current presidential headquarters, Los Pinos -- a sprawling complex that sits in a leafy park, isolated from the bustle of the capital.

The guest list includes a host of regional presidents, King Felipe VI of Spain, and US Vice President Mike Pence, accompanied by his boss's daughter and adviser, Ivanka Trump.

President Trump, who is at the G20 summit in Argentina, has struck up a surprisingly warm relationship with Lopez Obrador -- though the migrant caravan threatens to interrupt that honeymoon.

The American president is pressuring Lopez Obrador to accept a deal to keep asylum-seeking migrants in Mexico while their claims are processed in the United States.

Lopez Obrador's foreign minister, Marcelo Ebrard, is due in Washington on Sunday for talks on the issue with US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.