Every working day at 7 am, Showtime is in the National Palace, the seat of the Mexican government in the historic center of Mexico City. An hour earlier, the first journalists are queuing up, workers with protest posters are in front of the entrance in position. Inside, in an Art Deco room, classical music splatters out of the speakers.
The host of the house arrives punctually: President Andrés Manuel López Obrador receives "Mañanera", his morning press conference. Critics often taunt the president with ridicule. They are "fifis" to him, constable of the Conservatives, who in his view have destroyed the land. But he does not avoid a question. His answers are often excursions into Mexican history.
Over 200 "Mañaneras" López Obrador has completed since taking office one year ago, and an end is not in sight. It is a ritual that he used during his tenure as Mayor of Mexico City from 2000 to 2005. The morning conferences, which are broadcasted by a national TV station throughout the country, are the most important platform for him to explain his policy.
López Obrador is a special case among the Latin American presidents. Since taking office, he has not once traveled abroad, yet Mexico has become a reference for Latin America's left.
Argentina's elected President Alberto Fernández drove to Mexico on his first outing to López Obrador. Bolivia's toppled leader Evo Morales was accepted in Mexico. Representatives of the left from all over Latin America have joined together in Mexico to form the "Group of Puebla", which is intended to counterbalance the advance of the right wing on the continent.
Obrador's hard course is applauded by the majority of the population
López Obrador has no bad word about Donald Trump. He does not use any of the anti-American stereotypes that Latin America's left loves so much. When Washington threatened economic sanctions because Mexico did not take enough action against illegal migration, López Obrador unhesitatingly took a turn: he sent the newly formed National Guard to the borders and deported thousands of migrants to their home countries. Human rights defenders are appalled, but for the majority of the population, the hard course is applauded.
López Obrador is a populist, but he does not make flaming speeches against the "Empire" like Brazil's ex-president Lula. He speaks slowly, making long pauses between the words. He repeats sentences that seem important to him. He is a preacher in the guise of a president.
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His personal integrity is not even challenged by his opponents. The son of a Tabasco merchant family not only preaches and practices frugality and thriftiness: López Obrador transformed the grandiose residence of his predecessors into a cultural center; the presidential jet is for sale, the bodyguard army with which they traveled across the country he dismissed, sold the armored sedans. He flies line in the tourist class and drives a white VW Jetta, which already has some years under the hump. He halved his salary.
Civil servants and state employees groan under his austerity policy. However, the strict financial management is one of the reasons why the Mexican peso under López Obrador has become one of the most stable currencies in the world. A large part of the country's economic elite is supporting him: multi-billionaire Carlos Slim, for some years the richest man in the world, publicly promotes López Obrador, with some of the largest banks and companies in the country joining him.
The focus is on the fight against corruption
In time for the anniversary of his arrival on December 1, López Obrador appeared in the morning press conference with a copy of his latest book. The work entitled "Towards an Ethical Economy" is his guide to the remaining five years in office, he said.
It is the bible of a missionary: on just under 200 pages, he explains how he wants to transform the nation, which has been shaken by corruption and violence, into a socially just, ethically oriented democracy.
The focus is on the fight against corruption, where he sees the main problem on the way to a just society. He is different from his left counterparts in Latin America. They always downplayed this ancient evil of Latin America.
López Obrador was considered a credible alternative to a political class frozen in corruption and arrogance. That there are no mass demonstrations in Mexico, as in Chile, Ecuador or Colombia, is also his merit.
However much López Obrador evokes righteousness, he has failed to strengthen democratic institutions. He has filled key organs such as the National Human Rights Organization with followers. His party Morena, which he founded only a few years ago, also attracts dubious politicians from other parties.
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López Obrador evidently believes that it will be enough if the man at the top leads by example. This naivety also characterizes his attitude to the most pressing problem of the Mexicans: Excessive violence in the country. The man who has begun to change Mexico fails on a subject that his predecessors have failed to address: the growing power of drug cartels.
Plastic bags with body parts are found almost every day in the country, and 2019 is likely to go down in history as the bloodiest year of all time, with probably more than 30,000 murders. Most recently, the massacre of a Mormon community near the US border shook the nation. A heavily armed killer squad had lured women and children into an ambush and slaughtered them with volleys of rapid-fire guns, killing nine people. The police suspect a drug cartel operating in the area.
Obrador wants to avoid a violent confrontation with the cartels
US President Trump wants to officially declare the Mexican drug cartels terrorists. This measure would have drastic consequences for the so far good relationship between Mexico and the USA. López Obrador warns against "interventionism". If the Americans fight the cartels on Mexican soil or send drones into the drug war, he would have to take sides against Trump - with incalculable consequences for politics and the economy.
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Is Mexico a failed state, as some republican senators in the US insinuate? This question overshadows the President's ambitious reform project. He will not use force to fight violence, he proclaims again and again.
López Obrador wants to avoid a violent confrontation with the cartels at all costs. He focuses on social programs for unemployed young people; so he wants to prevent them from posing as "soldiers" in the service of the mafia. He appealed to the drug bosses: They also have mothers who would weep for their deaths. His reaction is naive, but what would be the alternative?
The president has not yet used up his bonus. A year after taking office, 68 percent of Mexicans hold him, according to a survey by the newspaper "El Financiero". However, 40 percent are also that he has failed in security policy.
When he took office, López Obrador had promised that after a year, he would have laid the foundations for the turn of the century. Now he has requested a second year. In the third year, half of his term, the Mexicans are then to vote in a referendum on his administration.
Its success will then be measured not only in terms of economic growth and the impact of its social programs: the most important index will be the number of deaths in the drug war.