Sep. 30, 2024 Updated 7:50 PM PT
A press conference turned into a party with breakfast included. A raffle for a journalist to keep his watch. The unveiling of his portrait in the National Palace, the presidential headquarters. Lunch with other leaders. And at midnight on Monday, Andrés Manuel López Obrador He will no longer be president to, as he himself has said, playing with words, go to “La Chingada”, his ranch.
The presidential farewell of the 70-year-old charismatic politician was unprecedented in the region because politicians who could have had similar popularity chose to change their constitutions to stay in power. López Obrador, who has promoted controversial reforms to the Magna Cartahe never proposed it.
People gather to listen to Mexico’s outgoing president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, deliver his latest State of the Union Address in the Zócalo, the main square of Mexico City, on Sunday, September 1, 2024.
(Eduardo Verdugo/AP)
In fact, the icing on the cake of his mandate was enacting two of those reforms this Monday, which say a lot about his government.
One was the one that strengthens the National Guard—a body that was theoretically born to be civilian—and leaves it under the command of the Army, a very controversial and questioned change that culminates the process of increasing militarization of the country promoted during his administration. The other is the one that guarantees the rights of indigenous peoples, a sector of the population alongside which they have wanted to place themselves despite criticism from many of the native communities.
His last day as president, before handing over to Claudia Sheinbaum, his faithful disciple, was a summary of his way of governing.
Mexico’s outgoing president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, crosses his arms after delivering his latest State of the Union Address in the Zócalo, Mexico City’s main square, Sunday, September 1, 2024.
(Felix Marquez/AP)
As has happened almost every day for the past six years, it began with a security cabinet meeting, followed by his press conference number 1,438.
He dedicated it to the achievements achieved, always according to his data and with practical examples for the people, such as explaining that today you can buy almost twice as many kilos of tortillas or eggs with a minimum wage thanks to the increases that have been achieved and the control of inflation.
“I have to thank the Creator and the luck that I didn’t make many mistakes,” he had advanced on Friday as a balance.
FILE – Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador speaks during his daily morning press conference before officially opening the Felipe Ángeles International Airport (AIFA) north of Mexico City, March 21, 2022.
(Marco Ugarte/AP)
The mass bath was offered to him by the press, which he invited to breakfast after listening to live music and a recording by the artist Eugenia León in which his wife sang.
Some journalists who covered his “morning days” and who have shown notable pro-government activism, offered interviews to other reporters recounting their experience or shouted to give him gifts or take a “selfie” with the president. The one who won the presidential watch raffle couldn’t help but jump out of his chair elated when his name came out of the urn.
Supporters of Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador hold his initials in front of the National Palace where he holds his last morning press conference in Mexico City, Monday, September 30, 2024.
(Eduardo Verdugo/AP)
There were tears from some, such as those from the Secretary of the Interior, Luisa María Alcalde, and the heads of Security and Foreign Affairs and the commanders of the Army and Navy did not miss the meeting.
López Obrador had lunch with the presidents of Brazil, Colombia, Chile, Cuba, Guatemala, Honduras and Belize, his Latin American friends.
The Chilean Gabriel Boric announced on his networks that some of the priority issues with Mexico for the next stage are migration, security or the defense of human rights. The Brazilian Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva recalled that the problems of Latin America do not depend on the United States or the past but on the Latin American countries, in an evening allusion to one of the absences from Tuesday’s celebration, that of Spain, due to the dispute not to invite the king.
True to his style, López Obrador advanced his successor’s agenda: a dinner with the international representatives who had arrived for the ceremony, among them, the first lady of the United States, Jill Biden, who heads the White House delegation and advocated continuing working for a more prosperous, safe and democratic region.
López Obrador has been a tireless president who has visited all the municipalities.
“I dedicated myself to serving the people,” he said Monday. “I am leaving very satisfied by the affection of many Mexicans.”
In the street, in front of the National Palace, mariachis sounded. At night, he was accompanied by cheers as he left the presidential headquarters for his private home.
After Tuesday’s ceremony, he will begin his retirement. As he has insisted on countless occasions, he will not make statements, speeches, or public life. And in a matter of days he will leave for his ranch in Palenque, in the Mexican southeast, which he baptized “La Chingada”, a nickname of contempt in Mexico but which López Obrador himself has laughed at, boasting that he is going there by decision. own and not because his enemies command him.
