López Obrador is the fourth president – and the first from the left – elected since 2000, the year in which seven decades of monopoly control of the Presidency by the Institutional Revolutionary Party ( PRI ) ended.). About a year after taking office, López Obrador's approval rating is not too different from that of his more conservative predecessors in the same period. The governments of Vicente Fox, Felipe Calderón and Enrique Peña Nieto are widely seen as missed opportunities. In fact, the legacy of accumulated fiascoes decisively pushed López Obrador to the Presidency. Expectations are high. For his government to be successful, the new president will have to improve the living conditions of the majority of Mexicans. To do so, he must reduce corruption and improve economic fairness and public safety. In each area, however, there are reasons for concern about the president's ability to make significant headway.
In his 2018 campaign, López Obrador focused on the most emblematic infrastructure project of the previous administration: the New Mexico City International Airport. At that time, 20% of the construction had already been completed and 60% of the investment had been secured. López Obrador argued that the project was too expensive and riddled Whatsapp Mobile Number List. He offered several alternatives, including project cancellation, audit, or privatization. As president-elect, a month before assuming the presidency, López Obrador delegated the decision to the people, for which he organized a referendum. Although most of the polls showed that a large part of Mexicans wanted the construction of the airport to continue, the consultation produced the opposite result:
The consultation was riddled with irregularities. First, as president-elect, López Obrador did not have the legal power to convene it. Only 1.1 million people participated in the referendum – around 1.2% of the electoral roll. There were more polling places in the electoral districts in which Morena received more votes than in the places that were more reluctant. In the weeks prior to the referendum, numerous plaintiffs filed injunctions against the decision to call the referendum.