https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020...ident.html
EXCERPT: Latin American governments have reacted with different degrees of urgency and efficacy to the coronavirus pandemic. Some did so early on. [...] And then there is Mexico’s Andrés Manuel López Obrador.
Mexico’s president downplayed the threat of the virus for weeks. He suggested social distancing recommendations should be ignored. He soon showed he was willing to lead by (bad) example. Over the past few weeks, as the number cases began to grow, López Obrador kept to his schedule across the country, traveling on commercial airplanes, and went out of his way to flaunt his contempt for the most essential preventive measures. He kissed children and posed for selfies with adoring crowds. He sat down for lunch at a public restaurant. He even declined to use hand sanitizer. All of this while suggesting, astonishingly, that amulets and religious stamps could work as protection against the virus.
López Obrador’s recklessness would perhaps be less damaging if his administration hadn’t followed his lead. Mexico’s government chose to delay most of the quarantine measures other Latin American countries had already implemented. It finally changed course last week, when the authorities called on Mexican citizens to voluntarily quarantine to flatten the rate of contagion.
“This is our last chance,” deputy health minister Hugo López-Gatell said. López-Gatell, an eloquent epidemiologist who has become the government’s public face during the crisis, outlined the emergency in a television broadcast on Tuesday alongside foreign minister Marcelo Ebrard. Mexico’s president was not there.
But incredibly, López Obrador has set out to contravene every one of the measures his own administration set forth on Tuesday [...] Such antics demand an explanation. ... What drives such recklessness? In another Twitter video, López Obrador hinted at his reasoning. If he self-isolated, he argued, his opponents—“the conservatives”—would try to fill the void. “That’s what they want: for a vacuum to happen so that they claim control of the country,” he claimed.
This is utter nonsense. Elected in a landslide, López Obrador is the country’s most powerful president in decades. Through sheer numbers and political dominance, his party mostly controls Congress. His closest ally governs Mexico City. [...] Perhaps the problem lies in López Obrador’s self-doubt. With his approval rating sliding dramatically, Mexico’s president seems compelled to remain in a quasi-permanent campaign... (MORE - details)
EXCERPT: Latin American governments have reacted with different degrees of urgency and efficacy to the coronavirus pandemic. Some did so early on. [...] And then there is Mexico’s Andrés Manuel López Obrador.
Mexico’s president downplayed the threat of the virus for weeks. He suggested social distancing recommendations should be ignored. He soon showed he was willing to lead by (bad) example. Over the past few weeks, as the number cases began to grow, López Obrador kept to his schedule across the country, traveling on commercial airplanes, and went out of his way to flaunt his contempt for the most essential preventive measures. He kissed children and posed for selfies with adoring crowds. He sat down for lunch at a public restaurant. He even declined to use hand sanitizer. All of this while suggesting, astonishingly, that amulets and religious stamps could work as protection against the virus.
López Obrador’s recklessness would perhaps be less damaging if his administration hadn’t followed his lead. Mexico’s government chose to delay most of the quarantine measures other Latin American countries had already implemented. It finally changed course last week, when the authorities called on Mexican citizens to voluntarily quarantine to flatten the rate of contagion.
“This is our last chance,” deputy health minister Hugo López-Gatell said. López-Gatell, an eloquent epidemiologist who has become the government’s public face during the crisis, outlined the emergency in a television broadcast on Tuesday alongside foreign minister Marcelo Ebrard. Mexico’s president was not there.
But incredibly, López Obrador has set out to contravene every one of the measures his own administration set forth on Tuesday [...] Such antics demand an explanation. ... What drives such recklessness? In another Twitter video, López Obrador hinted at his reasoning. If he self-isolated, he argued, his opponents—“the conservatives”—would try to fill the void. “That’s what they want: for a vacuum to happen so that they claim control of the country,” he claimed.
This is utter nonsense. Elected in a landslide, López Obrador is the country’s most powerful president in decades. Through sheer numbers and political dominance, his party mostly controls Congress. His closest ally governs Mexico City. [...] Perhaps the problem lies in López Obrador’s self-doubt. With his approval rating sliding dramatically, Mexico’s president seems compelled to remain in a quasi-permanent campaign... (MORE - details)