The Fourth Transformation (Spanish: Cuarta Transformación) is Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador's (commonly known as "AMLO") 2018 campaign promise to do away with privileged abuses that had plagued the country in decades past.
[3] "Based on what we have achieved, we will seek to undertake a peaceful and orderly transformation, yes, but no less profound than Independence, the Reformation, and the Revolution; we have not made all this effort for mere cosmetic changes, by far, and much less to stay with more of the same."
They warn that if decision-making depends exclusively on National Regeneration Movement (Morena), the legislature could lose power as it did under the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI).
[5] President Lopez Obrador cites three previous periods of transformation in history of Mexico: the Independence Movement (1810-1821), La Reforma (1858-1861), and the Mexican Revolution (1910-1917).
[8] For five years, the insurgents were confined mostly to guerrilla warfare, led by Guadalupe Victoria near Puebla and Vicente Guerrero in the mountains of Oaxaca.
[10] After an unsuccessful electoral campaign against President and dictator Porfirio Díaz, on November 20, 1910, Francisco I. Madero called the Mexican people to arms.
In 30 years of rule, Diaz had modernized the country and established a growing economy, but he had done so by granting numerous concessions to British and American investors while denying basic liberties to peasant farmers, miners, and workers.
[12] A year after the election and seven months since he took office, President López Obrador stated that he had fulfilled 78 of the 100 promises he had made, including ending the Drug War.
Fourteen projects worth MXN $21.356 billion (US$14 million), including the expansion of the Cuautitlán-Huehuetoca train in the State of Mexico, are planned for 2021.
[16] Ending the Texcoco project was highly controversial so after winning the election Lopez Obrador decided to submit the proposal to the people of Mexico.
[23] Critics worry about environmental effects, threats to local indigenous cultures, and economic benefits that will include communities that do not have one of the 18 stops along the route.
Giovanna Gasparello of the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) points out that there no studies linking the project and development have been published.
[26] Fuel theft from pipelines owned by Pemex, has been a long-term problem in Mexico,[27] with a loss to the government of between MXN $15 and $20 billion (US$80 to $106 million) every year.
[28] When President Andrés Manuel López Obrador took office in December 2018, he launched a campaign against huachicoleros and dispatched close to 5,000 troops from the Armed Forces and the Federal Police to guard pipelines across Mexico.
[37] However, Eduardo Bohórquez, director of the watchdog group Transparencia Mexicana warns of "hyperpolitization" of corruption and compares the treatment of Rosario Robles with that of Carlos Lomelí Bolaños and their alleged roles in the Estafa Maestra (Master Scam).
[38] While AMLO has emphasized the fight against corruption, many people worry that that does not include ranking members of the Mexican Armed Forces.
[46] Two days later, on October 17, the police and National Guard botched an attempted arrest and extradition of Ovidio Guzmán López of the Sinaloa Cartel in Culiacán.
Heavily armed men attacked various parts of the city, including an apartment complex housing the relatives of military personnel and the local airport, killing fourteen people before Guzmán López was released by the police.
"[48] Three weeks after that, three women and six children, members of the LeBarón family, were massacred en route to a wedding in Le Barón, Galeana, Chihuahua, 70 miles south of the U.S.-Mexico border.
[49] All nine victims were dual Mexican-American citizens, prompting U.S. President Donald Trump to threaten to declare Mexican drug cartels "terrorists" which would give him the authorization to attack them, violating Mexico's sovereignty.
[50] Trump backed off after U.S. Attorney General William Barr spoke to Lopez Obrador,[51] Femicide (Spanish: feminicidio), rape, and other forms of violence against women becomes a source of contention for the government in late 2019 and 2020.
[64] In March, the World Health Organization declared that COVID-19 had become a pandemic, but that all of the confirmed cases in Mexico were related to people who had traveled overseas, so it was not considered an emergency.
Nonetheless, Mexico began preparing for Phase 2, canceling or postponing massive entertainment events and classes in universities but without instituting travel restrictions.
[65] Mexico entered Phase 2 on March 24, 2020, stepping up restrictions by closing movie theaters, bars, nightclubs, museums, and other entertainment centers.
[61] A poll by Gabinete de Comunicación Estratégica on March 27, 2020, showed that 68.5% of Mexicans felt the government was not prepared for the health crisis.
[70] Although there have been a number of well-publicized efforts to end corruption, such as the resignation of Secretary of the Environment Josefa González-Blanco Ortiz-Mena and arrest warrants for Emilio Lozoya Austin, former CEO of Pemex, a January 2020 U.S. News & World Report survey of 20,000 citizens stated that Mexico was the second-most corrupt country among those surveyed.
[73] The president won praise when he opened the archives on police political activities in February 2019, but cutting off public access a year later was not seen in a positive light.
The archives were opened in 1998, allowing access to information about the 1968 student movement, but historians worry about a new age of secrecy regarding wrongdoing by Miguel Nazar Haro, Jorge Carrillo Olea, and Marcial Maciel, among others.
[74] Representatives from Canada, the United States, and six European countries met in Mexico City in March 2020 to discuss possible negative effects of AMLO's energy policies and his rejection of contracts signed by President Enrique Peña Nieto's government.