The current frontrunner is Andres Manuel López Obrador, often known by his initials AMLO, who leads the National Regeneration Movement (MORENA). According to recent polls, Obrador enjoys the support of 37.7% of likely voters. He is trailed by Ricardo Anaya of the National Action Party (PAN) with 20%. José Antonio Meade of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) is currently in third place with just 17%, setting the stage for a savage defeat for incumbent president Enrique Peña Nieto’s party.

The story of Mexico’s election is one that’s becoming increasingly familiar, that of an outsider (though this is AMLO’s third presidential run) benefiting from voter exhaustion amid a corrupt and ineffective political establishment.

But will AMLO be able to cure what ails Mexico?

BACKGROUND: Getting to know AMLO

Andres Manuel López Obrador is a leftist firebrand who was flying the populist flag long before it came back into style. But don’t let that fool you; he is still a dyed-in-the-wool member of Mexico’s political class. AMLO is only an outsider insofar as actually obtaining national power is concerned. He began his political career as a member of the PRI party back in 1976, but when the Party of Democratic Revolution (PRD) split from PRI in 1988 amid allegations of election rigging, AMLO went with it and became the new party’s national leader. He went on to be elected the mayor of Mexico City in 2000, but resigned in 2006 to stand as PRD’s presidential candidate in a broad election coalition. He narrowly lost the vote, falling just 0.5% short of PAN’s Felipe Calderón, and subsequently refused to concede, prompting months of protest in Mexico City. Then in 2012 he stood once again as the PRD candidate, finishing second with 31.6% of the vote. In 2014, he founded a new party called the National Regeneration Movement, and will run under its banner on July 1.

Unlike the Donald Trumps and Sebastian Kurzs of the world, AMLO is a left-wing populist in the same vein as Bernie Sanders or, to a lesser degree, Jeremy Corbyn – who happens to be a close friend of his. AMLO’s message has always been one of “taking Mexico back,” back from the corrupt institutional parties like PRI, back from the oil barons, back from the cartels, etc. The message was the same in 2006 and 2012, but it has found a new resonance in 2018 due to the political ennui that descended over Mexico in the twilight of the Nieto era. Voters are tired of corrupt and incompetent leaders who have no solution to the problems of stagnant wages and spiraling drug violence (23,100 murders were investigated in 2017). They are motivated less by AMLO’s specific policy prescriptions and more by the fact that AMLO doesn’t belong to either PRI or PAN.

In terms of actual policy, AMLO will probably come in less radical than advertised by his opponents, who are warning voters of growth-stifling regulations, new fuel and food subsidies, and even nationalization of private industry. For his part, AMLO has tried to preempt the smear campaign by announcing that there would be no new nationalizations under his presidency, and by naming a team of educated technocrats to his cabinet. He has struck a more moderate tone since losing in 2012, and the circumstances surrounding this election have encouraged him to be intentionally vague in order to cast a wider net. Moreover, AMLO’s more radical inclinations will continued to be tempered by two factors: 1) the need for a sympathetic Congress to pass the laws, which he is unlikely to have; and 2) the divergent interests within his ‘Together We’ll Make History’ coalition, which brings together progressives, economic nationalists, and religious conservatives.

Corruption has become a more visible problem in Mexico under the Nieto presidency, where two ministries sawsome 1.3 billion pesos simply disappear from their books and various PRI governors are facing charges over the misuse of state funds. The taint of alleged corruption has penetrated into President Nieto’s inner circle, with accusations that a bribery investigation against one of the president’s campaign team was shelved at the government’s request. The individual in question – Emilio Lozoya – went on to run Pemex, Mexico’s state-owned oil firm. To say that the Nieto administration did nothing to help solve the problem of corruption would be generous. In truth it often actively impeded anti-corruption efforts and in doing so effected a general decline in accountability and rule of law in Mexico. Should the polls hold and AMLO be elected on July 1, he will be well positioned to take bold actions on corruption right out of the gates for the simple reason that he’s not tainted with any (current) association with PRI or PAN. Though as the Economist reports, AMLO is not entirely beyond the pale of suspicion. Back when he was mayor of Mexico City, one of Obrador’s close associates was caught on video accepting $45,000 in cash from a businessman.

Crime is another overriding issue in the lead-up to July 1. Mexico’s war on drugs is believed to have killed over 200,000 people over the past decade, and none of the major candidates seem to have anything to add to what has now become an intractable debate. Here AMLO is no different; he hasn’t taken a hard line against or in favor of the drug war, though he did float the idea of an amnesty for narcos under certain conditions back in 2017. Political violence has spiked in the lead-up to July 1, with 82 candidates and office holders being killed since September of last year.

AMLO can be expected to join with Canada’s Justin Trudeau in driving a hard bargain in ongoing NAFTA negotiations. According to one of his top advisors, Obrador is eager to involve himself directly in the trade negotiations should he be elected president. The advisor also suggests that his boss would be more willing to accept NAFTA’s demise than to accept the new terms being pushed by US negotiators. AMLO’s left-wing political baseline already aligns with dismantling the regional neoliberal trading order, and he has said in the past that Mexico could survive the death of NAFTA by focusing on internal markets. There is a reservoir of political support within Mexico for dumping NAFTA, particularly among farmers who have been devastated by competition from American agribusiness.  Should it come to that, AMLO would be politically insulated by the widely-held view that NAFTA’s downfall was initiated not from within but by US President Trump, a figure who is predictably reviled in Mexico.

Finally, it will be down to the next president to continue the reform process of Pemex, Mexico’s state-owned energy giant. One of President Nieto’s major successes came in energy reform, which was passed, complete with constitutional amendment, back in 2014. The reform process sought to stem falling oil and gas output levels by opening up Mexico’s energy monopoly and attracting new sources of foreign investment and technology. In all of the auctions since 2014, approx. $150 billion in foreign capital has been committed. AMLO has suggested that he will review these contracts if he becomes president, but only to gauge whether any corruption took place in the original tender. There was some concern that Obrador might attempt to reverse earlier reforms and reestablish Pemex’s monopoly position. However, AMLO is unlikely to have the two-thirds majority in Congress needed to do so, and even if he did he would still be faced with the problem of precipitous output declines. What’s more likely is that AMLO will continue with the spirit of Nieto’s reforms, attempt to rehabilitate Mexico’s energy industry, and if successful try to redistribute the windfall to the poor and other state development projects.