MEXICO CITY — Five months after winning in a landslide victory that set off a wave of euphoria in the country and engaging in a flurry of activity on par with that of a sitting head of state, Andrés Manuel López Obrador will finally be sworn into office Saturday as the 63rd president of Mexico. During his campaign, López Obrador vowed to crack down on corruption, called for economic austerity and pledged to slash his own salary — ditching the presidential jet is also in his plans — and cap other public officials’ pay. Many Mexicans have high expectations for López Obrador, who is limited to one six-year term, with no shot at re-election. He sees his inauguration as a historic "fourth transformation" of Mexico, following independence from Spain, the liberal reforms that broke the church's dominance in the 1850s and the 1910-1917 revolution.Lopez Obrador's predecessor, Enrique Pena Nieto, leaves office with a historically low approval rating, which in several polls ranged from 20 percent to 24 percent. Corruption and crime are not new, but AMLO capitalized on it as a left-leaning populist, campaigning on curbing violence by tackling poverty and inequality, which he vowed to uphold in his speech on Saturday. Her top issue is the economy, and she's upset that she has had to increase the price of the fruits and vegetables she sells to counter rising fuel prices. It caused anger in a country where 43 percent of the population is considered poor and politics is seen as the road to riches. Still, the president-elect slashed the project, deepening investors’ previous fears about López Obrador’s interactions with businesses and causing the peso to tumble. And he appears to have the mandate he needs to deliver it: he won a landslide victory in the July 1 elections, together with strong majorities in both houses of Congress for his coalition -- led by the party he founded just four years ago, Morena. 'It's a comfy plane': Mexico's Amlo seeks buyer for presidential jet Read more

Figures from around the world have been invited to the inauguration, including US vice-president Mike Pence, first daughter Ivanka Trump, Corbyn and – to the disgust of López Obrador’s domestic critics – Venezuela’s president, Nicolás Maduro. The man known as Amlo takes office as international attention focuses on a caravan of Central American migrants camped out at the US-Mexico border – the first foreign policy challenge of his administration. “We’re looking for change,” said Galvan, who expressed some bitterness at being underemployed – something attributed to graft in a government project he was supposed to work on.
Andrés Manuel López Obrador is sworn in as the 58th President of Mexico.