AFP: Mexico’s popular president Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador rallied more than 100,000 supporters yesterday in Mexico City, attacking the country’s right, its “oligarchs” and the United States, just over a year before elections to choose his successor.
The rally marked the 85th anniversary of the nationalization of the oil industry, a key event in Mexican history.
Denouncing US Republican lawmakers’ push to send the US military to battle Mexican drug cartels, Lopez Obrador told the crowd: “Cooperation yes, submission, no!”
“Mexico is an independent and free country and not a colony or a protectorate of the United States,” he told his supporters, who gathered in the city’s famous Zocalo main square.
Lopez Obrador also accused the opposition conservative PAN party of being born out of “criticizing the oil expropriation” that led to the industry’s nationalization.
“Whatever they do, the oligarchs will not return to power,” he said, defending his administration’s accomplishments such as a rise in average salary and strengthening of the peso.