AMLO's Inauguration speech translated by Google

[Doyle Phillips]

EXCERPT FROM SPEECH BELOW

Also, from the first of January next will come into force the free zone along the 3 thousand 180 kilometers of border with the United States. This strip of 25 kilometers wide will become the largest free zone in the world. There the same tax will be charged and the energy costs will be the same as in California, in Arizona, New Mexico and Texas, of the American Union.

In other words, in this strip .... The first day of January. In other words, in this range the VAT will be reduced from 16 to 8 percent. The income tax will go down to 20 percent. Gasoline, gas and electricity will cost less than in the rest of the country and the minimum wage will be doubled.

This will be the last curtain of development to retain with work and well-being our compatriots in the national territory. As for the welfare of our people, the plan is to combat poverty and marginalization as has never been done in history.

Message from the President of the United Mexican States Andrés Manuel López Obrador
Message to the Nation during the Transmission of the Executive Power to the Congress of the Union
President Andrés Manuel López Obrador offers a message to the Nation from the Congress of the Union
Andrés Manuel López Obrador, President of Mexico

Author
Presidency of the Republic
Publication date
December 1, 2018

Deputies and deputies. Senators, senators, local and federal authorities. Guests and guests from abroad. Mr. Enrique Peña Nieto, I thank you for your attention. But, above all, I recognize the fact of not having intervened, as other presidents did, in the last presidential elections.

We have already suffered this anti-democratic outrage and we value that the acting president respects the will of the people. That's why, thank you very much, Mr. Peña Nieto.

Friends and friends, by mandate of the people today we initiate the fourth political transformation of Mexico, it may seem pretentious or exaggerated, but today not only begins a new government, today begins a change of political regime.

From now on, a peaceful and orderly transformation will be carried out, but at the same time profound and radical, because it will put an end to the corruption and impunity that prevent the rebirth of Mexico.

If we define in a few words the three great transformations of our history, we could summarize that in the Independence struggle was fought to abolish slavery and achieve national sovereignty, in the reform for the predominance of civil power and for the restoration of the Republic. And in the Revolution our people and their extraordinary leaders fought for justice and for democracy.

Now, we want to turn honesty and fraternity into a way of life and government. It is not a rhetorical or propaganda issue, these postulates are based on the conviction that the Mexican crisis originated, not only because of the failure of the neoliberal economic model applied in the last 36 years, but also because of the predominance in this period of the most unclean public and private corruption.

In other words, as we have repeated for many years, nothing has harmed Mexico more than the dishonesty of the rulers and the small minority that has profited from influence.

That is the main cause of economic and social inequality, and also of the insecurity and violence that we suffer.

As for the inefficiency of the neoliberal economic model, suffice it to say that even in quantitative terms it has not yielded good results. Remember that after the violent phase of the Revolution, from the 1930s until the 1970s, that is, for 40 years, Mexico's economy grew at an average annual rate of 5 percent.

And during that same period, in two consecutive six-year terms, from 1958 to 1970, when Antonio Ortíz Mena was Finance Minister, the country's economy not only grew at 6 percent per year, but this advance was obtained without inflation and without increasing the public debt. By the way, Ortiz Mena was not an economist but a lawyer.

Subsequently there were 2 governments, from 1970 to 1982, in which the economy also grew at a rate of 6 percent per year but with serious macroeconomic imbalances, that is, with inflation and indebtedness.

As for the economic policy applied during the neoliberal period, from 1983 to date, it has been the most inefficient in modern Mexican history. In this time the economy has grown by 2 percent per year, and for this reason as well as the tremendous concentration of income in a few hands, the majority of the population has been impoverished until they have sought life in informality, to emigrate massively of the national territory or to take the road of antisocial behaviors.

I say this with realism and without ideological prejudices: neoliberal economic policy has been a disaster, a calamity for the public life of the country. For example, the energy reform, which we were told would come to save us, has only meant the fall in oil production and the excessive increase in the prices of gasoline, gas and electricity.

When the energy reform was approved four years ago, it was affirmed that foreign investment was going to be plentiful, as never before. The result is that they barely reached 760 million dollars of foreign capital, which only represents 1.9 percent of the incipient public investment made by Pemex in the same period, and barely 0.7 percent of the promised investment.

In the recitals of the laws approved at that time it was assured that in that year we would be producing 3 million barrels per day, and the reality is that we are extracting only 1 million 763 thousand, 1 million 763 thousand barrels per day. That is, 41 percent less than estimated and with a downward trend.

The damage caused to the national energy sector during neoliberalism is so serious, that we are not only the oil country that imports the most gasoline in the world, but that we are now buying crude oil to supply the only six refineries that barely survive. He says that a new refinery has not been built in the country for 40 years.

Here I add other balances of neoliberal or neo-orthodox economic policy. From Mexico is the origin of corn, that blessed plant and we are the nation that imports the most corn in the world. Before neoliberalism we produced and were self-sufficient in gasoline, diesel, gas, electric power. Now we buy more than half of what we consume from these inputs.

In this period, the purchasing power of the minimum wage has deteriorated by 60 percent and the salary of Mexicans is among the lowest on the planet. We have twice as many diabetes patients compared to Latin American countries. During the neoliberal period we became the second country in the world with the highest migration. They live and work in the United States, 24 million Mexicans. And as far as violence is concerned, we are in the first places in the world.

According to the latest Transparency International measurement, we rank 135th in comparison with 176 countries evaluated. We occupy the 135th place in corruption, among 176 evaluated countries and we pass to that place after being in the place 59 in 2000, go up to 70 in 2006, climb to 106 in 2012 and arrive in 2017 to the shameful position in which we meet.

That's why I insist. The hallmark of neoliberalism is corruption. It sounds strong, but privatization has been synonymous with corruption in Mexico. Unfortunately, this evil has almost always existed in our country, but what happened during the neoliberal period has no precedent in these times that the system as a whole has operated for corruption. Political power and economic power have fed and nourished each other and the robbery of the goods of the people and the riches of the nation has been implanted as a modus operandi.

At the time of the call, or the so-called stabilizing or shared development, which goes from the 30s to the 70s of the last century, the rulers did not dare to privatize the ejido lands, the forests, the beaches, the railroads, the telecommunications, mines, the electricity industry, much less to alienate oil, but in these last three decades the highest authorities have dedicated themselves, as in the Porfiriato, to concessioning the territory and transferring companies and public goods, and even functions of the State to national and foreign individuals.

It is not, as before, individual criminal acts, or a network of complicities to do business under the protection of the government. In the neoliberal period corruption became the main function of political power, so if you ask me to express in a sentence the plan of the new government, I answer: end corruption and impunity.

But contrary to what one might suppose, this new stage is going to start without pursuing anyone because we do not bet on the circus or the simulation.

We want to regenerate, really, the public life of Mexico. In addition, being honest, as we are, if we open files we would stop limiting ourselves to look for scapegoats, as has always been done, and we would have to start with the ones above, from both the public sector and the private sector.

I would not have judged enough prisons, and the most delicate, the most serious thing, we would put the country in a dynamic of fracture, conflict and confrontation, and this would take us to consume time, energy and resources that we need to undertake the true and radical regeneration of the public life of Mexico, the construction of a new homeland, the economic reactivation and the pacification of the country.

We are facing a political issue of State, and as such we must face it. My position on this was clearly defined since the campaign. I said that revenge is not my fort, and that although I do not forget, I am a supporter of forgiveness and indulgence.

In addition, and this is very important, I believe that in the field of justice the mistakes of the past can be punished, but the fundamental thing is to avoid the crimes of the future.

Consequently, I propose to the people of Mexico that we put an end to this horrible history and better start again, in other words, that there is no persecution of the officials of the past, and that the authorities in charge relieve in absolute freedom ...

That the authorities in charge unburden the pending issues in absolute freedom, by the way, today a commission of the truth is constituted to punish the abuses of authority, to take care of the case of the disappeared young people of Ayotzinapa.

That those who are responsible be punished, but that the Presidency refrain from requesting investigations against those who have held public office or have dedicated themselves to doing business under the protection of power during the neoliberal period.

From my point of view, in the current circumstances is more severe and effective condemnation of the neoliberal regime, make clear its manifest failure and its obvious corruption, and do everything we can to abolish the neoliberal regime and submit to legal proceedings or trials summarize their representatives, who in the end do not cease to be minors in the hope of an entire people and the strength of a nation like ours.

But in any way, as in all matters of transcendence for the public life of the country, I will defend with freedom and arguments my position of the final point and of thinking and working towards the future, but the citizens will have the last word, because all these matters are going to consult the citizens.

I also clarify that if my proposal is accepted to keep the Executive Branch out of this matter, such a determination will apply to those of before and for those who leave, not to us, who will uphold the ideal and practice of honesty. . I begin by reporting that we have promoted a law to turn corruption into a serious crime, which, although it seems incredible, was not.

With adherence to my convictions and in use of my faculties, I promise not to steal and not allow anyone to take advantage of his position or position to steal property from the treasury or do business under the protection of public power.

This applies to friends, applies to fight partners and family members.

I make it clear that if my loved ones, my wife or my children, commit a crime, they should be judged like any other citizen. I only answer for my son Jesus, for being a minor.

As for my person, I have promoted for years the reform of Article 108 of the Constitution to eliminate impunity and the privileges of high public officials, starting with the President of the Republic, who now, according to the bill that today , this day, I am sending to the Senate, may be the president of the Republic tried as any citizen for the crime that is, even being in office.

A good judge for the house begins. We will put order in the leadership of power, because corruption is promoted and practiced fundamentally from the top to the lower levels. That is, we are going to clean the government of corruption from top to bottom, as the stairs are cleaned.

The other hallmark of the new government will be the separation of economic power from political power. The government will no longer be a simple facilitator for looting, as has been happening. The government is no longer going to be a committee in the service of a rapacious minority. Represent rich and poor, believers and free thinkers, and all Mexicans and Mexicans, regardless of ideology, sexual orientation, culture, language, place of origin, educational level, or socioeconomic status. There will be an authentic rule of law, as summarized by the phrase of our nineteenth-century liberals, regardless of the law nothing and no one above the law.

We will also move towards a true democracy, the shameful tradition of electoral fraud will end. The elections will be clean and free and whoever uses public or private resources to buy votes and traffic in the poverty of the people or who uses the budget to favor candidates or parties, will go to jail without bail.

The fight against corruption and austerity will allow us to release enough funds, more than we imagine, much more, to boost the development of Mexico. With this simple formula of ending corruption and putting Republican austerity into practice, there will be no need to increase taxes in real terms, and that is a compromise that I am making, nor will fuel prices increase beyond inflation. .

Now it turns out that those who raised the price of gasoline are asking for it to go down. I make the responsible commitment, that soon, very soon, when we finish the refinery that we are going to build in Mexico and six refineries are rehabilitated, the price of gasoline and all fuels will go down.

Nor, to be heard well and to be heard far away, we are not going to indebt the country either.

When the six years of President Fox's term ended, the public debt - this is not known, but it is worth remembering it - was 1.7 billion. When the Calderón government left, the debt increased to 5.2 billion, more than 200 percent. And in those two sexenios was when more money was received for the sale of oil abroad and everything was squandered or went down the drain of corruption.

Now the debt is 10 trillion. Nothing more to pay for the service of this enormous debt we have to allocate from the budget next year around 800 billion pesos. Therefore, the public debt will no longer increase. That is our commitment.

We will not spend more than what comes into the public treasury. Contracts signed by previous governments will be respected, but there will no longer be corruption or influence in negotiations with private companies.

I am committed, and I am a man of my word, to the investments of national and foreign shareholders will be safe and conditions will be created even to obtain good returns, because in Mexico there will be honesty, rule of law, clear rules, economic growth and there will be confidence.

I also reiterate that the autonomy of the Bank of Mexico will be respected. We are preparing next year's budget and thanks to the savings that we will obtain with the fight against corruption and with the application of austerity measures, public investment will be increased to rescue the oil industry and the electricity industry.

We will promote productive projects with public and private investment, national and foreign. These projects will be created as curtains of development from south to north of the country, to retain Mexicans in their places of origin. We want the migration to be optional, not mandatory. We are going to make Mexicans have a job, prosper and be happy where they were born, where their family members, their customs and their cultures are.

For this reason, the Mayan train will be built, a million hectares of fruit and timber trees will be planted in the South-Southeast. The existing refineries will be rehabilitated, as we have already said, and we will make a new refinery in Dos Bocas, Paraíso, Tabasco, to stop buying gasoline abroad.

In the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, the creation of a railroad for a freight container train will be promoted and the ports of Salina Cruz and Coatzacoalcos will be expanded, to communicate in less time to the countries of Asia with the east coast of the United States.

In this corridor there will be electricity and gas at low prices, as well as tax subsidies for the installation of factories and the creation of jobs.

In three years it will be running - I'm tired, goose -, in addition to the current one, the new airport in Mexico City, with two additional runways at the Santa Lucia Air Base.

Also, from the first of January next will come into force the free zone along the 3 thousand 180 kilometers of border with the United States. This strip of 25 kilometers wide will become the largest free zone in the world. There the same tax will be charged and the energy costs will be the same as in California, in Arizona, New Mexico and Texas, of the American Union.

In other words, in this strip .... The first day of January. In other words, in this range the VAT will be reduced from 16 to 8 percent. The income tax will go down to 20 percent. Gasoline, gas and electricity will cost less than in the rest of the country and the minimum wage will be doubled.

This will be the last curtain of development to retain with work and well-being our compatriots in the national territory. As for the welfare of our people, the plan is to combat poverty and marginalization as has never been done in history.

Today I formally present to this Congress constitutional reforms, reform projects to the Constitution, to establish the welfare state and guarantee the right of the people to health, education and social security.

We will put aside the neoliberal hypocrisy. The State will deal with reducing social inequalities, social justice will not continue to be displaced from the government's agenda. Those born poor will not be condemned to die poor. All human beings have the right to live and be happy, it is inhumane to use the government to defend particular interests and to vanish it when it comes to protecting the benefit of the majority. It is not lawful, it is not fair to defend the power of the State to rescue bankrupt financial institutions and consider it a burden when it seeks to promote the welfare of the most needy.

It is pertinent, then, to state clearly that we are going to attend and respect everyone. We are going to govern for all, but we are going to give preference to the vulnerable and the dispossessed. For the good of all, first the poor.

Our slogan is always, as of today, the principle of government. I list some actions.

The so-called educational reform will be canceled. The National Institute for the Attention of Indigenous Peoples will be created. It will immediately start the program of medical care and free medicines in the marginalized areas of the country and will become universal throughout the country this program of medical care and free medicines, in the middle of the sexennium. It is my commitment.

The increases to the minimum wage will not be set below inflation as it happened in the neoliberal period. In 2 million 300 thousand young people will be hired to work as apprentices in workshops, companies, businesses and various productive or social tasks, and they will be paid a salary while training 3,600 pesos per month. There will no longer be ni-nis. They will not turn their backs on young people or they will be offended by calling them in that way, because it is not their fault that they do not have the opportunity to work and study.

10 million scholarships will be awarded to students at all levels of schooling, 100 public universities will be created, sports and artistic activities, science and technology will be encouraged.

The pension for the elderly, which was a creation of our movement, the pension program for the elderly will increase, that pension, double, and will have universal character. That is to say, retirees, pensioners of the ISSSTE and the Insurance are also going to receive this support.

A million people with disabilities or with different abilities will have a pension equal to that of the elderly.

Immediate attention will be given to those affected by the earthquakes, credit will be granted to the word to farmers, ranchers, fishermen, owners of workshops, artisans, small traders, entrepreneurs.

Field producers will be helped with subsidies and guarantee prices, and a basic food basket will be sold at a fair price to combat malnutrition and hunger.

It is important to specify that the recipients of these programs will receive what corresponds to them in a direct, personalized way, without intermediaries, with the purpose that there is no manipulation of the support for electoral purposes, and that they reach their full beneficiaries these supports, without moches No undue commissions.

We are also going to avoid affecting the environment. I take this opportunity to reiterate that neither fracking nor transgenic will be allowed.

How will understand the need to undertake these and other actions explains and justifies the plan of republican austerity to which we have committed, and that, by the way, does not mean, as you think in other countries, a mere set of adjustments in the productive and social expenditure of the budget. Here we understand it not only as an administrative matter, but as a policy of principles, since it implies ending the privileges of high bureaucracy. Juarez said that officials should learn to live in the just environment, and we argue that there can be no rich government, with poor people.

That is why the salaries of senior public officials will fall. This law has already been approved in this Congress, in this legislature. They will lower the salaries of those at the top, because they will increase the salaries of those below.

There will no longer be a private medical service for senior public officials. 5 billion pesos were destined for the payment of medical services to high public officials.

There will no longer be special savings banks for high public officials. There is no longer, that law was approved.

Nobody can travel in private planes or helicopters at the expense of public money. From Monday next will go on sale the presidential plane and the entire fleet of aircraft and helicopters for use by senior officials.

The president of the Republic will earn 40 percent of what the outgoing president received.

There will be no purchases of vehicles for officials, will be reduced by 50 percent government advertising spending.

Administrative units in the country will be reduced and there will be no government offices abroad, except of course, embassies and consulates.

The 8 thousand elements of the General Staff that were destined to take care of the president and the 3,200 agents of the Interior, until yesterday dedicated to espionage, will become part of the National Guard.

I will not live in Los Pinos and that official residence has already been opened, from today, to the public and will be integrated into the Chapultepec forest to become one of the largest and most interesting spaces in the world for art and culture.

Another important change will be the creation of the National Guard, if authorized by the people and the Legislative Power, to face the serious problem of insecurity and violence that we suffer. This means rethinking the role of the Armed Forces in the face of the ineffectiveness of the police corporations.

It is essential to accept that the Federal Police created 20 years ago to supply the work of the Armed Forces in the fight against crime, is currently a grouping of only 20,000 troops, lacking discipline, training and professionalism.

As for the ministerial agents and the state and municipal police forces, it must be recognized, without generalizing, that many are moved by corruption and not by the duty of public service, and that their decomposition puts them under the control of delinquency. The Mexican citizen is currently in a state of defenselessness. We do not have police to take care of citizens.

I have always thought that in the face of the problem of insecurity it is appropriate to address the causes that cause violence, and we will do so, but given the inefficiency of the police corporations and the serious increase in homicides, robberies, kidnappings, femicides and other crimes, I am requesting from Congress, as a matter of urgency, the approval of a constitutional reform that allows us to create, with the integration of the Military Police, the Naval Police and the Federal Police, a National Guard to carry out public safety functions, with full respect for human rights.

I know it is a controversial issue, but I have an obligation to express my point of view with realism and arguments.

The Armed Forces are among the best institutions in Mexico. The Mexican Army was formed in 1913 to face the usurper government of Victoriano Huerta. It is a revolutionary army, emerged from the people and since then has experienced few breaks in their unity and discipline.

The last military rebellion was that of General Saturnino Cedillo, in 1938-1939 and the Mexican Army has never given a coup to a civil authority. His loyalty to the government and his lack of ambition for economic and political power largely explains his explanation, among other factors, that the Mexican Army is not an elitist grouping, but has always nurtured the common people. The soldier is a uniformed town.

Certainly, not all of the military have shown impeccable behavior, nor should the fact that the Army has participated in acts of repression by orders of civil authorities be omitted. But in our military institutes no corrupt minorities have been formed, as in other areas of power, and unlike what happens in other countries, in Mexico there is no knowledge of the military that forms part of the oligarchy. In addition, it is a fact that the Army has the support of public opinion, it is an institution that throughout its history has maintained its professionalism and has been effective, without a doubt, in tasks of assistance to the population in cases of disaster, in earthquakes, floods, hurricanes, and has provided other services to the community.

The Armed Forces have made schools, they have universities, research centers, they have discipline and esprit de corps, they have maintained their nationalist vocation, and this is very important, and they have never been subordinated to any hegemony or foreign force.

The same can be said of the Ministry of the Navy, be aware that this dependence was created in 1940, when the original Secretariat of War and Navy was divided into two institutions.

Thus, the Army and the Navy can be prior preparation and training for the respect of human rights, and through the application of protocols for the use of force, the fundamental institutions to ensure national security, internal security and security public.

He added that the Peace and Security Plan includes the creation of 266 territorial coordinations in the country. Every day from six in the morning I will preside, in the National Palace, the meeting of the Security Cabinet, in which we will receive the part or report of what happened in the last 24 hours and we will take the necessary measures.

I add that according to our laws, the head of the Executive Power is the supreme commander of the Armed Forces and reaffirm the commitment that the president of Mexico will never give the order to repress the people nor will he be an accomplice or a cover-up for possible violations of human rights.

With regard to foreign policy, we will adhere to the constitutional principles of non-intervention, self-determination of peoples, peaceful settlement of disputes and cooperation for development.

We will maintain good relations with all the peoples and governments of the world, for that I appreciate the presence of Mr. Michael Pence, Vice President of the United States and his wife, Karen Pence.

And I want to emphasize that, since the first day of July, since the day of my election, I have received a respectful treatment from President Donald Trump, whom I thank that in a friendship plan he has sent his daughter Ivanka to this ceremony.

The same attention I received from the Prime Minister of Canada, Justin Trudeau. With them, with the two presidents, with the President of the United States and with the Prime Minister of Canada, I am talking about going beyond the North American Free Trade Agreement and reaching an investment agreement between companies and governments of the three nations. , to promote the development of the Central American countries and also of ours. And face in this way, and not with coercive measures, the migration phenomenon.

I am very pleased to have presidents from Latin America and the Caribbean. Mexico will not stop thinking about Simón Bolívar and José Martí, who together with Benito Juárez continue guiding with their examples of patriotism the way forward of peoples and political leaders.

Thank you for being here, Jimmy Morales Cabrera, president of the neighboring Republic of Guatemala. Juan Orlando Hernández Alvarado, President of the Republic of Honduras and his wife, Ana García. Óscar Samuel Ortiz Ascencio, vice president of the Republic of El Salvador. Colville Young, governor general also of our neighboring Republic of Belize. Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez, president of the Councils of State and Ministers of the sister Republic of Cuba.

Danilo Medina Sánchez, President of the Dominican Republic. Jovenel Moïse, President of the Republic of Haiti. Iván Duque Márquez, president of the Republic of Colombia. Nicolás Maduro Moros, president of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela. Lenín Moreno Garcés, friend Lenín, president of the Republic of Ecuador and his wife Rocío González. Friend Evo Morales, president of the plurinational state of Bolivia. Martín Vizcarra Cornejo, president of the Republic of Peru.

I appreciate the presence of Julie Payette, Governor General of Canada. Brahim Ghali, president of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic. From Kim Yong-nam, President of the Republic of the Supreme People's Assembly of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. Shen Yueyue, vice president of the People's Assembly of China.

I also thank, for the ties of history, culture, that unite us, the presence of Felipe VI, king of Spain. Of the prime minister António Costa, of the Portuguese Republic. From Eugene Philip Rhuggenaath, Prime Minister and Minister of General Affairs of Curaçao. Ana Birchall, Deputy Prime Minister of Romania. De Lucía Topolansky, vice president of the Oriental Republic of Uruguay. De Gabriela Michetti, vice president of the Republic of Argentina. From Hugo Velázquez, vice president of the Republic of Paraguay and his wife, Lourdes Samaniego. From Claudia Dobles Camargo, first lady of the Republic of Costa Rica.

I thank many representatives of international organizations, governors, authorities, from various countries. There are dear friends here like Miguel Ángel Revilla, president of the government of Cantabria and his wife, Aurora Díaz. There is our friend, Jeremy Corbyn, member of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, leader of the Labor Party.

He is also an ambassador of poetry and congruence, Silvio Rodríguez, and his wife, Niurka González.

Friends, I came to the Presidency of the Republic after many years of personal and collective struggle. Here I remember those who started this movement, those who sowed what we are now harvesting. Social leaders, politicians, many who came forward, but were the forerunners of this struggle, of this movement. We will never forget them.

Llegamos después de muchos años, y en mi caso, como en la mayoría de los que forman parte de este gran movimiento, sin dejar la dignidad en el camino, manteniendo en alto nuestros ideales, nuestros principios. En mi caso particularmente, también en el de muchos otros, mujeres y hombres, mi honestidad, que es lo que estimo más importante en mi vida.

Estoy preparado para no fallarle a mi pueblo. Now that he was coming here, a young man on a bicycle paired up and said: You have no right to fail us. Y ese es el compromiso que tengo con el pueblo: No tengo derecho a fallar.

Nada material me interesa ni me importa la parafernalia del poder. Siempre he pensado que el poder debe ejercerse con sabiduría y humildad, y que sólo adquiere sentido y se convierte en virtud cuando se pone al servicio de los demás.

I am aware of the great expectation that exists among Mexicans, and the challenge of facing the great and serious national problems, but I am optimistic and I think we are going to do well, we are going to face the big and serious national problems well because I believe in the people and their culture, the culture of the people, of our people, the cultures of Mexico that have always been our saviors.

With our cultures we have faced epidemics, earthquakes, floods, famines, invasions, civil wars, economic crises, epidemics, bad governments and other calamities, and we have always resurfaced with dignity and pride.

The legacy of civilizations has forged us as a tenacious, combative, fighting, enterprising, honest people, with an exceptional idiosyncrasy of fraternity, of love of neighbor, of true solidarity.

Nuestro pueblo no es flojo, no es perezoso, no es indolente, por el contrario, es de las sociedades más trabajadoras del mundo, y ahí está el ejemplo de nuestros paisanos migrantes que por necesidad han ido a ganarse la vida a Estados Unidos y ahora están enviando a sus familiares 30 mil millones de dólares anuales.

Esas remesas son la principal fuente de ingresos de nuestro país y el dinero de mayor beneficio social que recibimos del extranjero.

México no es el cuerno de la abundancia que su silueta en el mapa pareciera evocar, pero aun así tenemos muchos recursos naturales: agua, petróleo, gas, yacimientos minerales, vientos, sol, playas, contamos con bosques y selvas, con buenas tierras para la producción agropecuaria y forestal, y somos de los países con mayor biodiversidad en el mundo.

That is why I am optimistic, I believe that we are already achieving, it is starting and we are already on the road to achieving the rebirth of Mexico, that we are going to become an economic power and, above all, a model country that will have to demonstrate to the world that ending corruption is possible, and we will do it, because in that way we will build a more just, democratic, fraternal and always happy society.

There are three things we need to face the Mexican crisis and two of them are guaranteed in advance. I reiterate, a working people and enough natural wealth. Soon, very soon, we will have the third, a good government, and in that commitment I will strive for my honor and my word.

I will govern with total dedication to the public cause, I will dedicate all my time, my imagination, my effort to collect the feelings and to fulfill the demands of the people. I will act without hatred, I will do no harm to anyone, I will respect liberties, I will always bet on reconciliation and I will seek that together and through the path of concord, we achieve the fourth transformation of public life in Mexico.

Finally, just as I am a Juarista and a Cardenista, I am also a Maderista and a supporter of effective suffrage and no re-election.

I will work 16 hours a day to make the work of transformation six years in advance, I will do everything I can to block the regressions in which the conservatives and the corrupt will be engaged.

That is why we will apply the political and social changes quickly, very quickly so that if in the future our adversaries, who are not our enemies, defeat us, it will be hard for them to backtrack on what we will already achieve. As the liberals of the 19th century, the Mexican liberals would say, it is not easy to retrograde.

But I also make it clear that under no circumstances will I have to re-elect myself, on the contrary, I will submit to the revocation of the mandate because I wish that the people always have the reins of power in their hands. In two and a half years there will be a consultation and the citizens will be asked if they want the President of the Republic to remain in office or ask for a license, because the people put and the people take away, and is the only sovereign to whom I owe submission and obedience.

I accept the challenge and I invite you to participate to celebrate together and together, the splendor and future greatness of our beloved Mexico. Thanks with all my heart. Hurray Mexico. Viva Mexico. Viva Mexico.

[jesm]

Wonderful.
Thank you for sharing.

[James Doran]

Wow. Wow. Wow.

There is hope. This is amazing.

James Doran
jim@doranlegal.com
Guanajuato and Bellingham

[Diane01]

Thank you so much for posting this.

Reading this, no one can say that AMLO doesn’t have *vision* to the max.
And principles.

It seems that AMLO’s election might almost be seen as a revolution. The people have spoken.

Of course, the trick will be implementing his vision – or even part of it. It will be interesting, if not riveting, to watch how things develop in these next months and years.

And I’ve been focused so much on my plan to move to Mexico. Rather self-centered in my concerns, although I do care about all people. (I’m actually quite active politically on the left side of the spectrum in the U.S.)

I realize now that I will have to stay awake and aware and care about the welfare of all Mexicans, even if it may not always be in my own best interests.

[suzanl]

Thank you Doyle for posting this for us.