AMLO 'Ends Neoliberalism', Ushers In Post-Neoliberal Plan

President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (AMLO) says neoliberalism has been “abolished” in Mexico.

During the unveiling of the administration’s National Development Plan 2019-2024, AMLO said: "The neoliberal model and its economic policy of pillage and handouts are abolished" in the country.

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The head of state added: "The nightmare that was the neoliberal policy (is) finished. We formally declare, from the National Palace, the end of the neoliberal policy."

Earlier this month the Mexican leader called the country's decades of neoliberal reforms "complete failures especially in the last few years and more precisely last year.”

AMLO, who was elected last year on an anti-corruption, anti-privatization platform, told the crowd as he introduced his development plan Sunday: "The market won’t replace the state."

AMLO’s predecessor, Enrique Peña Nieto, to the opposition of over 60 percent of the population, infamously signed a 2014 law that privatived much of the country’s energy sector, including the country’s 1938-formed state oil agency, PEMEX (Petróleos Mexicanos).

Lopez Obrador reminded those present that the state has an economic, social and political responsibility to improve the living conditions of the people and even achieve the "happiness" of the people, according to local media.

The president called his administration’s plan, "post-neoliberal" and an alternative to create actual economic development.

"We must show that modernity can be forged from below, and without excluding anyone, and that development does not have to be contrary to social justice," pronounced the president.

His post-neoliberal policies will be guided by honesty, wealth distribution, gender equality and “dignity for all,” including young people and seniors, said AMLO.

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The president, who enjoys a 78 percent public approval rating, has already implemented several “post-neoliberal” policies since taking office in December such as cracking down on corruption and fuel theft within PEMEX, along canceling a US$13 billion Mexico City airport backed by Mexico's richest and the world’s seventh wealthiest man, Carlos Slim. 

At the same time, the president has been widely criticized for using public referendums to push through major infrastructural projects throughout the country that residents says will be damaging to public health and the environment.

For his part, the Undersecretary of the Ministry of the Interior Alejando Encinas said that the new government’s plan is a turn around from the four decades of the state “abandoning” the people.

"It's about leaving behind almost four decades of abandonment by those who submitted to the laws of the market," Encinas said. He added that this abandonment has created the country’s intense violence that is creating a "deep crisis" in the country. The undersecretary said the solution to the end of the violence needs to be centered around three pillars: gender equality, inclusion and non-discrimination.

"Human rights must impregnate all public actions and policies of this government in a transversal manner, as proposed in the National Development Plan,” said Encinas who has pledged to bring justice to the country’s thousands of unsolved and unpunished murders. Mexico’s National Institute of Statistics and Geography registered 154,557 murders between 2010 and 2016, of which 94.8 percent remain unconvicted.

The official added that to reverse this “humanitarian crisis, it is essential that public is governed by the principles of non-discrimination, gender perspective and inclusion."