Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador will be the next president of Mexico

Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador will be the next president of Mexico. I’m on the record today – before the Mexican elections on July 2 – with this prediction. As of today, Lopez Obrador and his closest rival, Felipe Calderon, are running neck-and-neck. Yet I base my prediction (that Lopez Obrador will win the election) on two considerations. First, my own finger on the pulse of Mexican society. My Mexican associates tell me that they feel Lopez Obrador will be the presidential winner. Although voters say that they like Calderon, they now want to give the PRD a chance, just as they did with the PAN, to see how effective it might be governing the nation. This, in turn, is based upon the second factor. Whereas both candidates are attempting to use Mexico’s recent economic upturn to their political advantage, Calderon must concede that it has been his own party’s administration (under Vicente Fox) overseeing the economic stagnation of the past six years. And the PRI candidate isn’t even popular in this election. So I repeat: Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador will be the next president of Mexico. The question that remains is this: What effect will this new president have on Mexico-U.S. relations?