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Andrés Manuel López Obrador ((
listen); born 13 November 1953), also known by his initials AMLO, is a Mexican politician who has been serving as the 65th
president of Mexico since 1 December 2018.
Born in
Tepetitán, in the municipality of
Macuspana, in the south-eastern state of
Tabasco, López Obrador graduated from the
National Autonomous University of Mexico in 1986 following a hiatus from his studies to participate in politics. He earned a bachelor's degree in political science. He began his political career in 1976 as a member of the
Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) in
Tabasco. His first public position was as director of the Indigenous Institute of Tabasco in 1977, where he promoted the edition of books in indigenous languages and the project of the
Chontal ridge. In 1989, he joined the
Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) and was the party's 1994 candidate for
Governor of Tabasco. He was the national leader of the PRD between 1996 and 1999. In 2000, he was elected
Head of Government of
Mexico City. In 2012, he left the PRD, and in 2014, he founded the
National Regeneration Movement (MORENA), which he led until 2017.
Often described as a
center-left progressive populist and
economic nationalist, López Obrador has been a national politician for more than three decades. Critics have claimed that his administration has stumbled in its response to the
COVID-19 pandemic in Mexico and attempts to deal with drug cartels and other crime, and that the economy had already faltered even before the pandemic.
Pemex (a
portmanteau of Petróleos Mexicanos, which translates to Mexican Petroleum in English is the
Mexican state-owned petroleum company managed and operated by the
Mexican government. It was formed in
1938 by
nationalization and
expropriation of all
private oil companies in Mexico at the time of its formation. Pemex had total assets worth $101.8 billion in December 2019 and as of 2009 was
Latin America's second largest enterprise by annual revenue, surpassed only by
Petrobras (the
Brazilian national oil company). The company is the 7th most polluting in the world according to
The Guardian.
