Today, as we close out 2020, we excerpt from Mexican president Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s reflections on his first two years in office, as delivered December 2 in his second annual State of the Nation address in México City.

On the fight against corruption

On our first day in office, my wife and I drove to the Legislature for the swearing in ceremony without the presence of the Presidential General Staff apparatus or the usual paraphernalia of power.

We knew what changes had to be made. Among other modifications to the legal code, corruption, the massive theft of gasoline, and electoral fraud were classified as serious crimes; the National Guard was created; tax waivers were cancelled; the possibility of holding citizen consultations was guaranteed; the procedure for revoking the president’s term in office was approved; presidential immunity was eliminated so that the president could be judged for any crime just like any other Mexican. In two years, we saved 1.30 trillion pesos in government purchases and contracts, fuel theft — what is known as huachicol — was reduced to a minimum; tax fraud and other harmful malpractices that proliferated in public finances under the old regime were drastically reduced.

On the Covid-19 crisis 

We have installed 32,203 general hospital beds and 10,735 with ventilators and 193,645 general practitioners have been trained. 71,000 new health-care workers were hired. I cannot fail to mention the solidarity, the humanism shown by foundations sponsored by companies and private hospitals that, since the first days of the pandemic, have been supporting us in attending to patients with COVID and other illnesses. We have established relations with pharmaceutical companies and governments internationally to obtain and apply the COVID vaccine as soon as possible.

On the economic crisis

Facing the economic crisis has been less painful and complex than fighting the spread of the virus. It has turned out that it was very useful that we discarded the economic prescriptions applied during the neo-liberal period, starting with the strategy of plunging the population into debt in order to rescue those at the top. Thanks to the austerity measures and the fight against corruption, we did not have to resort to taking on new loans and all the resources freed up go directly. That is, preference is given to the poor and the middle classes.

In two years, the minimum wage has increased by 30 percent, in real terms, something that had not happened in the past 36 years of neoliberal rule or prior to that period. The stipends provided to senior citizens and people with disabilities were paid in advance, educational scholarships were maintained, support was given to peasant farmers, growers, and fishermen, and the credit program was expanded for small businesses in the formal and informal sectors of the economy.

Not only was the subsistence of all facilitated, but a drop in the consumption of food and other basic goods was avoided, which would have had additional disastrous effects for the rest of the economy. This strategy coincided with the 10 percent increase in remittances sent from the United States by our migrant compatriots to their families. Here or there, our people always show extraordinary solidarity.