Just over a month before the federal elections in Mexico, where the President of the Republic will be elected – among other national and local positions – it would be worth asking what politicians and reactionaries cannot forgive Andrés Manuel López Obrador for conservatives and the most retrograde far-right of that nation and the continent, especially the United States.

If you were to ask me, I’d say without a doubt that you cannot and will not be able to forgive him for his honesty and passion, which he has shown to be imprinted on everything he does and says and with which he inevitably infects those around him. They follow him no matter how far or close they are.

“Great things are done with passion, but they also require reason. (…) The most important thing for a leader who wants to transform is to be honest. Because you have to be honest, regardless of whether you feel good about your conscience, you are free,” AMLO said recently in an interview with Russia Today.

However, he recognized that poverty – despite the multiple crises caused by Covid 19 pandemic – and what he calls “the revolution of consciences, are the greatest achievements of the well-known “Government of the Fourth Transformation”.

And there’s no doubt that in Mexico during his mandate there has been considerable economic growth, accompanied by more transparent public finances, strengthening of its currency – more supported in relation to the dollar – and an evident decrease in unemployment.

“It’s full employment. Works are being done in Mexico that are not being done in any other country in the world. (…) Mexico has 35 million families, 35 million, and 32 million are receiving direct support; and the 3 million families that do not receive direct support from the budget are also assisted. Because as there’s economic growth, there’s employment, the domestic market is strengthened, merchants are supported, businessmen are supported,” the president summarizes it this way, while highlighting citizen participation and participation as an indispensable factor in these results change of mind that has go together with it.

In a country where rates of criminal acts associated with drug trafficking and other evils, the rescue of peace has been considered by AMLO as one of the advancements of these years, about which he recognizes that there’s still much to do but assures: “we have achieved, together, from below, a transformation in the country. There are results. The generational change is good. We're going to do well. The future is escorted by justice and has the face of a woman. (…) I am happy because I am closing a cycle. We have achieved, together, from below, a transformation in the country. There are results. (…) I already helped a lot and they helped me a lot. We are in peace".

AMLO has also proven to be a human being, a man, a patriot with extraordinary values, who seeks to learn from everyone, and whose simplicity allows him to point out things like this: “The main lessons of what’s being done, of what’s being put into practice, regardless of the theoretical, comes from collecting people's feelings. (…) I have a lot of love and a lot of trust in the people of Mexico.”

One of the moments in which the strength, spirit and honesty of this man who has chosen to dedicate himself to what he considers “the noble profession of politics” is most noticeable have been the morning conferences that from Monday to Friday and through his social networks, each of them has held master classes in communication, diplomacy, modesty and altruism. Let's be clear, you have to have a lot of will, capacity for dialogue, preparation, courage and political maturity to manage to maintain a space like this that he grants - in his own words - "the freedom and moral authority to govern and even communicate without censorship."

In that very space, as on a daily basis in his actions in the immediate or distant international context, and especially in the face of threats from its neighbor on the North and from others who have wanted to trample it or remove it from the usual channel of its government of peace and integration, he has ratified that Mexico is a sovereign, independent country, never a colony of anyone.

“We have shown that United States agencies, the ones that help self-proclaimed non-governmental or independent organizations or civil society, give money from the United States government. (…) So, yes they are very interventionist, it’s a mania, but we have been able to establish order and demonstrate that a lot is manipulated. Fortunately we return to what I told you at the beginning. As the mentality of the people has changed, the people of Mexico are one of the most politicized peoples in the world, so none of that has any effect anymore,” he said in this regard.

In Cuba we have had this interventions on several occasions and our authorities from the Party, the State and the Cuban government have been in that country like someone visiting a true brother, the other house, the one that always has the doors open, the sincere hug and the hand extended to help in the most complex moments and those that are imposed on us daily as well. He was among the first to support us in the face of natural disasters, in the same way in extreme situations such as the accident in Matanzas and not in words, in concrete actions that contributed to getting out of that torment more quickly and avoiding more losses.

Few like him have raised their voices with such force against the US blockade against Cuba, in defense of our sovereignty and for having the social project that we chose and he has been one of the greatest admirers, eternally grateful for the solidarity that has spread our people throughout the world, including his.

For these and for many other arguments and examples that would be endless in a few words, what they cannot and will not be able to forgive AMLO is precisely that, the honesty and passion with which he has removed foundations and has marked a path that many of us will have to travel in the future, in Mexico, in Our America and in the world. We could all be, thanks to his teachings, as the poet would say: “a lot better and a bit less selfish.”

Translated by Amilkal Labañino / CubaSí Translation Staff