Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Five things you need to know about Andrés Manuel López Obrador - known as "Amlo"

Left-wing candidate Andrés Manuel López Obrador has claimed victory in Mexico's presidential election, saying "profound change" is coming.

The ex-Mexico City mayor, known by his initials Amlo, is projected to win about 53%. His rivals have conceded in a crushing defeat for the main parties.

Mr López Obrador's key pledge has been to tackle the "evil" of corruption.

He has also been highly critical of President Donald Trump and ties with the US will now be closely watched.

Relations with Washington have been hugely strained, with Mr Trump strongly criticising Mexico over trade and migration. Mr Trump has sent a tweet of congratulations.

What has López Obrador said?

Late on Sunday, the 64-year-old promised to respect civil liberties and said he was "not looking to construct a dictatorship, either open or hidden".

Some opponents have expressed fears that his leftist and populist policies could damage the already sluggish economy and turn Mexico into "another Venezuela", which is suffering a deep economic crisis and rampant inflation.

Hailing a "historic night", Mr López Obrador called on all Mexicans to reconcile and repeated his campaign pledge to review energy contracts for signs of corruption.

"Corruption is... the result of a decadent political regime. We are absolutely convinced that this evil is the main cause of social and economic inequality, and also that corruption is to blame for the violence in our country," he said.

He has insisted that no-one involved in corruption will be spared, not even those he calls "brothers-in-arms".

So what are his other main policies?

On combating Mexico's record levels of violence, much of it related to drug cartels, Mr López Obrador said he would have daily meetings with his security cabinet, which under him, he said, would be under a "unified command".

Sunday's election followed one of Mexico's deadliest campaigns in decades with more than 130 political candidates and party workers killed.

Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption How should Mexico's new president deal with Trump?

During the campaign Mr López Obrador had often used confrontational language when referring to Mr Trump, but struck a more conciliatory note in his victory speech, saying he would seek "friendly relations".

He also tried to reassure the business sector, saying there would be no nationalisation and that he would respect private business. He also said his government would be fiscally disciplined and taxes would not be raised.

On social policies, he said he would double pensions for the elderly upon taking office on 1 December as a first step to reducing Mexico's disparate income levels.

Andrés Manuel López Obrador - a brief biography

Born to a family of shopkeepers on 13 November 1953 in the rural community of Tepetitán, in southern Tabasco state

Known popularly as Amlo, which is an acronym using the full initials of his name

Elected Mexico City mayor in 2000

After losing the presidential elections in 2006 and 2012, he ran again this time under a three-party coalition led by the leftist National Regeneration Movement party (Morena) he founded in 2014

The self-styled anti-establishment figure has now ended the dominance of the PRI and PAN parties he called the "mafia of power"

López Obrador, a winner at last

What have his rivals said?

The latest figures from the Mexican electoral institute show Mr López Obrador has won more than double the votes of his nearest challenger. It is the widest victory since the 1980s.

Ricardo Anaya, candidate for the conservative National Action Party (PAN), looked set to be runner-up to Mr López Obrador.

"I recognise his triumph, I express my congratulations, and I wish him the greatest success for the good of Mexico," Mr Anaya said.

Ruling party candidate José Antonio Meade, who lies in third place according to initial results, told supporters that he wished the winner "the greatest success".

Mr Meade's Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) has dominated Mexican politics for much of the past century but has slumped in popularity.

The electoral institute figures put official turnout at 62.7%. As well as a new president, 128 senators and 500 deputies in Congress were elected, in addition to state and local officials.

Mr López Obrador's coalition is set to have a majority in the lower house and possibly the Senate.

How will US-Mexico relations be affected?

Mr López Obrador had been the candidate most critical of Mr Trump and had said he would make the US president "see reason", branding his anti-immigrant policies "irresponsible" and "racist".

Mr Trump has riled Mexico by saying he will renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement (Nafta) and build a wall along the US-Mexico border.

His hardline stance on migration - particularly the separation of migrant families at the US border - has brought widespread condemnation.

Some 2,000 children remain separated from their migrant parents, despite Mr Trump agreeing to curtail the policy.

In his victory speech, Mr López Obrador said: "We will pursue a relationship of friendship and co-operation with the United States, always rooted in mutual respect and in the defence of our fellow Mexicans who live and work honourably in that country."</s>MEXICO CITY — Mexicans on Sunday appear likely to elect a left-wing populist president who has campaigned on standing up to President Donald Trump, potentially ushering in a more confrontational era of U.S.-Mexico relations on everything from immigration policy to trade.

Andrés Manuel López Obrador, a former mayor of Mexico City who styles himself as a champion for rural Mexico, has enjoyed a double-digit lead over the other top candidates from the country’s major parties for months.

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His vows to eradicate violence and official corruption — long unaddressed by outgoing Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto’s ruling PRI party — have played a major role in lifting him to the head of the pack. But his pledge to defend Mexicans from Trump, coupled with his nationalistic rhetoric, has also bolstered his standing with Mexican voters.

López Obrador traveled through the U.S. after Trump was elected to advocate for Mexican immigrants living in the states and even published a book called "Oye, Trump" ("Listen Up, Trump") that condemns Trump’s plans to build a border wall and “his attempts to persecute migrant workers.”

Mexico “will never be the piñata of any foreign government,” López Obrador, 64, told more than 90,000 supporters at a rally here to close out his campaign on Wednesday.

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The election of López Obrador — like Trump, known for his impulsive and nationalistic tendencies — could further strain U.S-Mexico relations. The candidate, nicknamed AMLO, says illegal migration to the U.S. should be addressed with economic development programs, not a border wall. And while he supports continued talks to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement, he’s also been a critic of free trade in the past, arguing that Mexico needs to be more self-sufficient.

“AMLO won’t hold back the way Peña Nieto has,” said Mark Feierstein, former senior director for western hemisphere affairs at the National Security Council. “Peña Nieto has been very passive toward Trump and toward the United States.”

López Obrador, a two-time failed presidential candidate, is now running as the candidate for the left-wing National Regeneration Movement (Morena), a party he founded in 2014. He frames himself as a political outsider even though he has been a politician for decades. His popularity stems from widespread distrust of the ruling parties, including Peña Nieto’s PRI, which held power from 1929 to 2000 and regained the presidency in 2012. Less than 20 percent of Mexicans support Peña Nieto’s administration, according to Mexican consulting firm GEA-ISA.

López Obrador’s opponents — PRI’s José Antonio Meade and Ricardo Anaya, who’s running under an unlikely coalition of right-left parties — have also said they will demand respect from Trump. Being critical of Trump is seen as an easy way to unite Mexicans, who widely dislike the U.S. president. More than 80 percent of Mexicans have a negative opinion of Trump, according to a June poll by Mexican consulting firm Consulta Mitofsky.

Peña Nieto’s failure to stand up to Trump’s insults against Mexico and its people further hurt his popularity, particularly after he welcomed then-candidate Trump to Mexico in 2016. In 2017, Peña Nieto faced widespread criticism for sitting silently next to the American president on the sidelines of the G-20 meetings in Germany while Trump repeated that Mexico would pay for a border wall.

In April, Peña Nieto finally gave a defiant address, telling Trump to respect Mexico because challenges in the U.S.-Mexico relationship “never justify a threatening attitude or lack of respect between the countries.” The speech was widely praised, even by López Obrador, but many argued that it came too late.

Against that backdrop, López Obrador’s fiery rhetoric is resonating with voters.

López Obrador “answers to his domestic constituencies, especially as many feel that Peña Nieto has been like Trump’s doormat,” said Ana Quintana, senior analyst on Latin America and the Western Hemisphere at the Heritage Foundation.

Despite the tough talk, López Obrador says he wants to work with Trump. He’s proposed a large-scale project that will strengthen cooperation between North America and Central American countries. The effort, López Obrador has said, would lead to more jobs and higher salaries — two points that would drive down illegal migration and cross-border violence. He also wants to hammer out a NAFTA agreement that will lead to higher wages for Mexicans, something that Trump supports.

The change in administrations could spark a new era of cooperation, Marcos Fastlicht, one of López Obrador’s top advisers, told POLITICO.

“A door opens for opportunity with Andrés Manuel,” said Fastlicht, a Mexican businessman who has been friends with López Obrador for about 20 years. “He’s willing to speak with [Trump], willing to sit and negotiate, but part of this requires we wait and see.”

Roberta Jacobson, who retired in May from her post as U.S. ambassador to Mexico, said López Obrado told her it was his priority for Mexico to have a good relationship with the U.S. during her meetings with him.

“Whether he can do that, whether any Mexican president can do that, is unclear to me,” she said.

Jorge Castañeda, a former Mexican foreign minister who served during the presidency of conservative Vicente Fox, put it another way.

“López Obrador will try and be prudent, more tolerant,” said Castañeda, who is currently campaign coordinator for Anaya. “But Trump is Trump.”</s>Andrés Manuel López Obrador won a decisive victory in Mexico's presidential election on Monday in a sharp shift to the left for the North American country.

The 64-year-old former mayor of Mexico City and his party, Morena, were also projected to take a majority of seats in the nation's House and Senate.

Runner-up Ricardo Anaya received just 22.5 percent of the vote to López Obrador's 53.1 percent with votes still being tallied.

López Obrador campaigned on pledges to increase welfare spending, provide scholarships to students and battle government corruption.

The Mexico City mayor from December of 2000 to July of 2005, he resigned office to compete in the 2006 election for president.

He fell just shy of winning higher office, with a mere .58 percent of the popular vote separating him from his winning opponent.

He finished second again in the 2012 presidential election before his landslide victory in 2018.

As the mayor of Mexico City, López Obrador formed a connection that could assist him in his relations with America's own populist president. He hired former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani to help him address Mexico City's crime problem.

Giuliani is now Donald Trump's personal attorney and is known to be advising his client, as well, on politics, having participated in Trump's campaign and the fellow New Yorker's transition to office.

President Trump's expectation that he will have a 'very good relationship' with Mexico's next president could be very short-lived, however.

The president-elect of the United States' neighbor to the south staked his campaign on standing up Trump.

Battles on trade and immigration are almost sure to ensure, in light of López Obrador campaign slogan 'Listen, Trump! Saying Yes to a New Start for Mexico, Saying No to a Wall.'

He promised last week in pointed remarks that Mexico 'will never be the piñata of any foreign government' in slap that was directed also directed at Trump.

López Obrador has also indicated that like Trump, he'd be willing to walk away from the North Atlantic Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) if he doesn't get what he wants.

A populist just like Trump, however, López Obrador has also taken on the 'elites' in Mexico.

Trump recalled on Monday that he once told the rising star 'some day he's going to be the president of Mexico' and his prediction turned out to be correct.</s>Updated at 4 a.m. ET

Leftist Andrés Manuel López Obrador — who campaigned partly on a platform of standing up to President Trump — will become Mexico's next president after easily outpacing his two main rivals.

With about a third of the votes counted, López Obrador was polling about 53 percent to 24 percent for conservative candidate Ricardo Anaya and 15 percent for Jose Antonio Meade of the ruling Institutional Revolutionary (PRI) party.

"The tendency favors Andres Manuel López Obrador," Anaya told his supporters minutes after Meade also conceded. "I recognize his triumph."

Pre-election polls had shown López Obrador, a 64-year-old former mayor of Mexico City, as a heavy favorite and exit polls indicated the trend in the early count was almost certain to hold.

López Obrador's calls for transforming Mexico by ousting the "mafia of power" and his advocacy for the poor held strong appeal. In addition, his nationalistic appeals, including a promise to defend Mexicans against U.S. bullying also helped win votes.

The candidate, who goes by the nickname AMLO, even published a book, Oye, Trump ("Listen Up, Trump") aimed squarely at the U.S. president. Even so, as Reuters notes, "López Obrador's nationalism, stubborn nature and put-downs of rivals have drawn comparisons" to Trump.

Trump congratulated the apparent victor in a tweet Sunday night, saying he looked forward to working with him.

As NPR's Carrie Kahn notes, López Obrador "says he's going to cut the perks and corruption from the top and give that money and savings to the bottom — raising salaries, pensions for the elderly, scholarships for the young."

The New York Times writes that the outcome of Sunday's election "represents a clear rejection of the status quo in the nation, which for the last quarter century has been defined by a centrist vision and an embrace of globalization that many Mexicans feel has not served them."

That banner for that vision has been carried by Mexico's long dominant PRI party and its outgoing president, Enrique Peña Nieto.

Exit polls forecast gubernatorial wins for allies of Obrador's Morena party in four of the eight state races being contested, as well as the capital, Mexico City, according to The Associated Press.

Mexico's central state of Guanajuato was expected to go to the conservative National Action Party, the AP says.</s>At first blush the election of Andrés Manuel López Obrador, known as AMLO in Mexico, might seem like the best possible news for the Mexican people and bad news for the people of the United States.

Mr. Obrador is of the left, and campaigned on promises of a massive public works program to employ 2.3 million people; Bernie Sanders-like grants for university students; and doubling Mexico’s old-age pensions. He likens himself to Franklin Delano Roosevelt and his program to the New Deal.

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His counterpart in the United States, Donald Trump, is a tax cutter and regulation slasher.

And the two men would seem to be on a collision course, given Mr. Trump’s war on illegal immigration and Mr. Obrador’s characterization of Mr. Trump as a bully.

Two nationalists, one of the left and one on the right (sort of), seem bound to clash.

But then again, AMLO’s more fundamental platform, and the reason he won in a landslide (53.4 percent) against the two major parties (the runner up got 22.6 percent), and took control of the Congress, is his three-part personal pledge: “Do not lie; do not steal; and do not betray the people.”

Mexico has been stolen blind by its leaders. It is overrun with corruption. Mr. Obrador has vowed to end it.

And Mexicans seemed to say: Left or not, at least this man will try.

The country is also incredibly violent with a dramatic uptake in murders in recent years and months, many of them over drug trafficking or politics, only a tiny percent of which get solved.

Finally, Mexico remains a poor country for most Mexicans, despite the status of Mexico City as one of the world’s new financial meccas. In the provinces, poverty, thuggery, and political corruption are the rules of life.

Corruption among political bosses in small towns is so rife that any journalist who does his job quickly finds his life is at risk.

Violence, corruption, and poverty are destroying Mexico’s social fabric and its national pride.

So, Mr. Obrador faces a very dangerous and very deep swamp.

The larger and long-range issue in Mexico is the lack of political institutions — the courts, the police, and much of the media cannot check the corruption because they are a part of it. From the time of the fall of the PRI party, which employed one-party rule for 75 years, Mexican politics has been in a kind of free-fall. The PRI kept order, thanks to its monopolistic hold on power. When it fell apart, there were few strong institutions to fall back on and few have matured or developed since.

Former Mexican President Ernesto Zedillo, who is now a scholar at Yale, says there are three ultimate issues for Mexico: The rule of law, the rule of law, and the rule of law.

Can AMLO address that? Probably not. But he is a broom, and the only one that was available. Mexico almost had to choose him. He is an old-fashioned populist who campaigned against what he called the “power Mafia,” and promised to cut his salary in half and turn the presidential palace into a park. He ran twice for president before and lost narrowly. This time the people wanted change, and were willing to take a chance on AMLO’s socialism.

The question will be whether the new president will focus more on honesty and nationalism or more on state spending to help the poor. Mexico has spent itself into federal insolvency before, and the poor were not helped.

Mr. Obrador served as mayor of Mexico City once upon a time, and was not only a pragmatist, but a deficit hawk. He has promised to finance public works by ending corruption. If he can do that, and stop the killing, he will have done a lot.

A nationalist and a change agent who is ultimately a pragmatist? Mr. Obrador may have more in common with Donald Trump than anyone expected.

Voters in Mexico, like voters everywhere, are smart. Most do not think they are voting for instant transformation when they vote for change. They vote for a shift in direction. And Mexico could not have kept going in the same direction. This was not precisely a vote for the left. It was a vote for “Enough.”</s>MEXICO CITY — Leftist Andrés Manuel López Obrador claimed a landslide victory in Mexico’s presidential election on Sunday, upending politics with promises to fight violence and corruption.

“I’m very aware of my historical responsibility,” López Obrador told throngs of supporters in Mexico City’s central square. “I don’t want to go into history as a bad president. Now we are going to transform Mexico.”

Earlier in a speech to reporters, López Obrador pledged to seek “a relationship of friendship” with the United States, Mexico’s largest trading partner.

The 64-year-old former Mexico City mayor, who will take office on Dec. 1, is expected to move the country in a more nationalist direction.

“We have witnessed today a very profound reshaping of the country’s political map.”

López Obrador has pledged to reduce the country’s economic dependence on its powerful northern neighbor, but also said he hopes to persuade President Donald Trump to help Mexico and Central America develop so as to contain illegal immigration to the U.S.

Mexico’s current president, Enrique Peña Nieto, has quarreled with Trump over trade and immigration. The first high-level contact between López Obrador and the White House is likely to be a phone call later on Monday. Trump tweeted his congratulations Sunday night, saying, “There is much to be done that will benefit both the United States and Mexico!”

Earlier Sunday, Trump raised the possibility of taxing cars imported from Mexico if there are tensions with the new government.

According to a quick count by the electoral authority, López Obrador won 53 percent to 53.8 percent of the vote — more than double the total for his nearest rival. His allies were also forecast to win majorities in the Senate and lower house, according to a prominent exit poll.

The nationwide election effort was marred by violence, with an estimated 130 politicians killed in the course of the campaign across the country. For over a decade, the Mexican military has also been waging a war against hugely powerful drug cartels.

“We have witnessed today a very profound reshaping of the country’s political map,” Goldman Sachs economist Alberto Ramos told Reuters. “The balance of power at the federal and local levels has definitely shifted to the left, with unclear implications for the near-term policy direction.”

Ruling party candidate José Antonio Meade conceded the election earlier on Sunday, saying his rival bore the responsibility of the next government and wishing him well.

Mexico City was the scene of jubilation, with supporters honking their horns to the tune of “Viva Mexico!” and waving Mexican flags. Thousands heeded López Obrador’s call to gather in the sprawling main square known as the Zocalo, with many dancing to mariachi music.

“This is the change we needed,” said supporter Mario Alvarez, 40.

“AMLO was the right choice. Mexico is corrupt. It won’t be easy, but it’s a start,” he added, referring to López Obrador by his initials, a widely used nickname.

Emilia Gutierrez, 34, was smiling as she rode her bike to the Monument to the Revolution to celebrate with fellow López Obrador supporters.

“It’s the first time the country feels happy,” she said. “It’s about what he represents. So many doors have been closed in Mexico. Now one opens.”

His victory highlighted the widespread discontent with outgoing Peña Nieto’s ruling centrist Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, which has governed Mexico for 77 of the past 89 years. Peña Nieto also congratulated López Obrador Sunday, saying, “He and his team will have the support of the Mexican government to make an orderly and efficient transition.”

López Obrador is no stranger to political campaigns. This was his third consecutive attempt to win the country’s highest office. Mexican presidents sit for one six-year term and are prohibited from holding office again.

López Obrador has pledged to combat inequality, improve pay and welfare spending, and run a tight budget but has been vague on policy details. Around half of the Mexico’s population of 124 million live in poverty.

He has also promised to root out widespread corruption.

“Whoever it is will be punished, I include comrades, officials, friends and family members,” López Obrador said Sunday. “A good judge begins at home.”

He has shunned the typical trappings of office and said that he will live in his own home, turn the official residence into an arts center, sell the presidential plane and cut his salary.

Addressing accusations of authoritarianism, López Obrador told tens of thousands of supporters last week that there would be no dictatorship. He promised to respect the separation of powers, freedom of the press and the independence of the central bank.</s>In a landslide victory, leftist presidential candidate Andrés Manuel López Obrador triumphed over his rivals Sunday night, securing an estimated 53 percent of the vote after a campaign focused on some of Mexico’s most pressing concerns. Some of the factors that accompanied his success, such as the rapid rise of his new party and the populist rhetoric, bear similarities with other seismic political disruptions in recent years.

But while López Obrador may be yet another political star who won against the establishment, his rise was facilitated by distinctively Mexican circumstances — which the 64-year-old was able to capitalize on more effectively than his contenders.

“The corrupt regime is coming to its end.” (López Obrador, June 27)

Throughout his campaign, the future Mexican president repeatedly promised to eradicate the nation’s corruption problem and struck a chord with voters.

“Voting is the only tool we have to ensure that this corrupt system changes,” López Obrador voter Luis Valdepeña Bastida, 51, told my colleague Joshua Partlow.

Mexico’s corruption index has further deteriorated in recent years and the country now ranks 130th out of 180 nations.

While 2014 marked a hopeful year on many fronts — with corruption, crime rates and drug deaths on record low levels — the situation has worsened over last three years. López Obrador turned the reversal of odds into a rallying cry, focused on disadvantaged voters.

Whereas there were under 16,000 homicides in 2014, the number had increased to over 20,000 by 2016 and nearly 30,000 homicides last year.

Fighting drug violence was one of López Obrador’s most frequently repeated campaign promises, even though the then-candidate came up with an unusual solution: an amnesty for some individual involved in the drug business, primarily farmers found guilty of planting marijuana and opium poppy.

The use of illegal drugs has been on a steady rise since the early 2000s, and López Obrador has appeared open to the legalization of certain drugs.

After years of declining economic performance and worsening corruption, young voters in particular — who make up almost 40 percent of the country’s voting-age population — have grown weary of the more established parties and politicians, turning to López Obrador instead who addressed some of their core issues:

“The state will cease to be a committee at the service of a minority and will represent all Mexicans, rich and poor." (López Obrador, July 1)

According to data by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), younger Mexicans have higher levels of education than their parents but are still “disadvantaged in terms of income, wealth, jobs and earnings.” Tapping into younger voters’ dissatisfaction with that discrepancy, López Obrador specifically targeted younger voters during his campaign, promising them jobs and other educational schemes to confront the cartels’ recruitment drive.

As Mexico’s first leftist leader since the country started its transition to multiparty democracy more than three decades ago, López Obrador will now be judged on whether he can deliver on those far-reaching promises.

Mexico’s next president thinks Trump is ‘erratic and arrogant,’ and a lot else

Trump said North Korea was ‘no longer a nuclear threat.’ His spies disagree.</s>Donald Trump has congratulated the new leader of Mexico, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, saying that he told him several years ago that he would become president.</s>When he played baseball in this steamy village where he grew up, the teenage Andrés Manuel López Obrador was known by his teammates as El Molido, or the Grinder, and is remembered for his ability to clobber the ball far into the bushes.

Others in the village of Tepetitán, especially the elders, would refer to this son of local shopkeepers as Nesho, an affectionate way of saying Andrés. As he rose in local politics, his supporters gave him a new name, Peje, after the tough pejelagarto fish that swims in the surrounding swamps. When he shot up to become mayor of Mexico City, TV pundits dubbed him AMLO, adjoining his initials to save breath. On July 1, he will likely earn yet another tag—El Presidente—as the new leader of this nation of 130 million.

Polls predict that López Obrador will win the race with a home run—beating Ricardo Anaya, of the center-right National Action Party, or PAN, by two votes to one. That result would be an upheaval in Mexican politics, giving the country its first truly leftist leader since Lázaro Cárdenas in the 1930s, who expropriated oil from American and British companies. It would place a leftist nationalist over the Rio Grande from Donald Trump, who has promised to tear up trade deals with Mexico and erect a wall at the border to keep out “bad hombres.”

As López Obrador has soared toward the highest office in the land, he has campaigned mostly in the pueblos—small towns and villages like his native Tepetitán. It is here that López Obrador’s brand of leftist nationalism can be best understood. Many pueblos have been hit hard by the downside of globalization, their craft trades wiped out by factory-made imports, their farmers crushed by agribusiness, their young trekking to the U.S. to lay bricks and pick fruit. In their plazas, López Obrador has promised crowds that he would revive the pueblos and their people, building roads, repairing schools, paying for pensions and subsidies.

“I have a dream that there isn’t emigration, that Mexicans can work and be happy where they were born, where their family is, where their culture is,” López Obrador told a rally in Jerez, Zacatecas, giving a nod to Martin Luther King Jr. “And those who want to leave go because they choose to, not out of necessity.”

Mexico may soon discover if a switch in direction to a more nationalist state-driven economy will uplift the poor and quell the violence as López Obrador says it will—or whether it will backfire and push Mexico even deeper into a hole.

Supporters hold up their mobile phones during a musical performance at López Obrador's final campaign rally at Estadio Azetca in Mexico City on June 27. The Mexico in which López Obrador grew up in the 1950s and ’60s offered entirely different prospects than today. The economy enjoyed a rate of growth that topped 10% some years, and pueblos were romanticized by moviemakers as the quintessential habitats of Mexico. Tepetitán, in the state of Tabasco, was a close-knit community whose older residents remember feasting on fresh fish and enjoying riverside dances. López Obrador still speaks with a hint of a local accent and sprinkles folksy terms into his speeches, adding to his appeal as a man of the people. Once, he told former President Vicente Fox to “shut up, chachalaca,” referring to a noisy bird that flaps around the swamps. After graduating from college with a degree in political science, López Obrador soon joined the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, which ran Mexico for most of the 20th century. However, as the PRI veered to more free-market politics, he broke away to help found the left-leaning Democratic Revolution Party, rising to become its mayor for Mexico City in 2000. His ambitions for national office were repeatedly thwarted, however. He lost his first run for President in 2006 by just 0.6% of the vote, after which he accused the government of fraud and blocked streets for months in protests. In 2012, he lost again, this time to Enrique Peña Nieto of the PRI, by a wider margin of 6%, and unsuccessfully challenged the vote in the courts. So he began taking his message directly to the people, visiting every one of Mexico’s 2,464 municipalities and building a vast network of grassroots support. Manuela Obrador, a cousin who is standing as a federal deputy in the town of Palenque, described how they set up committees in barrios, ranches and jungle villages. “He goes to the pueblos because the closeness to the people is what he is looking for,” she tells TIME. “He goes into the communities, he walks in them. That makes him different, that makes him sensitive. He really sees how the communities are.” López Obrador greets a young girl in a departures lounge at the airport in Campeche, following a campaign rally, on June 26. He made three final stops on the Yucatán Peninsula before heading back to Mexico City. López Obrador’s third run for the presidency took root in 2014, when he formed his own political party, the Movement for National Regeneration, or Morena, an acronym which also means “dark-skinned woman.” Political scientist Frederico Estevez says this name sends a subtle message to the majority of Mexicans, who tend to be darker skinned, while the wealthy elite are often whiter. “It is very clever marketing,” says Estevez. “He doesn’t need to say anything, but the argument is there, playing on identity politics.” As López Obrador built his network of grassroots support into a popular movement, disenchantment with the ruling government blossomed. Peña Nieto led structural reforms, finally allowing private foreign investors back into the oil sector. But growth has been modest. Meanwhile, the administration has been plagued by corruption scandals, and the murder rate has hit record levels. Peña Nieto’s approval rating hovers in the 20s, and the PRI’s presidential candidate, José Antonio Meade, trails in third place. Like a U.S. politician name-checking the Founding Fathers, López Obrador tells crowds that he aspires to be a Mexican President like the revered historical figures Benito Juárez, Francisco I. Madero and Cárdenas. He claims he will pay for his promised social programs by eliminating corruption and slashing bureaucracy, including selling the executive air fleet, and will instead travel by land or commercial jet. He says he will tackle drug violence by inviting Pope Francis to Mexico to help forge a peace plan. He promises to move out of the presidential palace, which he says has “bad vibes,” and settle in an older building closer to the people. López Obrador promises more subsidies for small farmers so they can better compete with American imports of foodstuffs such as corn and make Mexico more food sufficient. But he has stopped short of calling for a trade war with the U.S. in response to President Trump’s raising tariffs, saying he agrees with him that Mexican workers should be paid more. Mexico is the third largest trading partner of the U.S., with $557 billion worth of cross-border commerce last year. López Obrador's final campaign rally at Estadio Azteca in Mexico City on June 27. How radical a President López Obrador would be is a matter of intense debate in Mexico. Some call him a change for good, others a messianic Chavista. Estevez says fears of a Venezuela-style crisis are overblown. “In American terms, he is a Bernie Sanders,” he says. “I don’t concede that all populism is undemocratic in its nature. When you have a long generation of elite failures, you need to nudge the rug to change things.” Journalist Sergio Sarmiento, who moderated the first presidential debate, believes López Obrador is more like Trump. “They both believe you have to manipulate markets to protect workers. They both believe you can do that by simply making decisions from the presidency,” Sarmiento tell TIME. “Trump is putting fear in many Mexicans, and this is helping López Obrador, because they believe he’s going to be more nationalistic.” Although Trump and López Obrador sit on opposite ends of the ideological spectrum, each belongs to a group of politicians who present politics as a conflict between elites and the people, whom they claim to represent. Many liberal academics see this loose group of populists as a danger to democracy, citing the swing to authoritarianism in countries like Turkey, Venezuela and the Philippines. In Mexico, critics of López Obrador use the term as a criticism. “No to populism, no to the scam, no to demagogy,” said former President Fox in one of a series of anti–López Obrador videos he released this year. López Obrador responds by saying his elite critics just don’t understand the movement he has built. “This populism is a tale to frighten,” he told a thronging crowd in the pueblo of Actopan. “They don’t even know what populism is … they fail to define it conceptually.” His chance to prove them wrong will likely start beginning July 1, when voters are expected to hand him the presidency after years of tireless efforts. But turning his promises into policies as President of Mexico could be his hardest run yet.</s>Left-wing candidate Andrés Manuel López Obrador has claimed victory in Mexico's presidential election, saying "profound change" is coming.

People in Mexico City told the BBC how they think he should deal with US President Donald Trump.
Voters in Mexico elect Andrés Manuel López Obrador as their new President in a landslide victory. Additionally, 128 senators and 500 deputies were also chosen.