MEXICOJune 18, 2020
Leaked documents reveal right-wing oligarch plot to overthrow Mexico’s AMLO
Mexico’s oligarchs and establishment political parties have united in a secret
alliance to try to remove left-wing President López Obrador from power, with
help from the media, Washington, and Wall Street. Leaked documents lay out
their devious strategy.
By Ben Norton
Some of the most powerful forces in Mexico are uniting in a campaign to try to
topple the country’s first left-wing president in decades, Andrés Manuel López
Obrador. And they apparently have support in Washington and on Wall Street.
Known popularly as AMLO, the Mexican leader is a progressive nationalist who
campaigned on the promise to “end the dark night of neoliberalism.” He has
since implemented a revolutionary vision he calls the “Fourth Transformation,”
vowing to fight poverty, corruption, and drug violence — and has increasingly
butted heads with his nation’s wealthy elites.
López Obrador has also posed a challenge to the US foreign-policy consensus.
His government provided refuge to Bolivia’s elected socialist President Evo
Morales and to members of Evo’s political party who were exiled after a Trump
administration-backed military coup.
AMLO also held a historic meeting with Cuba’s President Miguel Díaz-Canel, and
even stated Mexico would be willing to break the unilateral US blockade of
Venezuela and sell the besieged Chavista government gasoline.
These policies have earned AMLO the wrath of oligarchs both inside and outside
of his country. On June 18, the US government ratcheted up its pressure on
Mexico, targeting companies and individuals with sanctions for allegedly
providing water to Venezuela, as part of an oil-for-food humanitarian agreement.
The value of the Mexican peso immediately dropped by 2 percent following the
Trump administration’s imposition of sanctions.
These opening salvos of Washington’s economic war on its southern neighbor came
just days after López Obrador delivered a bombshell press conference, in which
he revealed that the political parties that had dominated Mexican politics for
the decades before him have secretly unified in a plot to try to oust the
president, years before his democratic mandate ends in 2024.
The forces trying to remove AMLO from power include major media networks,
massive corporations, sitting governors and mayors, former presidents, and
influential business leaders. According to a leaked document, they call
themselves the Broad Opposition Block (Bloque Opositor Amplio, or BOA).
And they say they have lobbyists in Washington, financial investors on Wall
Street, and major news publications and journalists from both domestic and
foreign media outlets on their team.
Jesús Ramírez Cuevas
✔
@JesusRCuevas
El pdte. @lopezobrador_ difundió un documento llegado a Palacio (cuyo origen y
autenticidad desconocemos) que propone la conformación de un bloque opositor
para arrebatar la presidencia en el 2021, en el que participan partidos,
empresarios, medios, intelectuales, periodistas.
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‘Broad Opposition Block’ BOA plot to demonize AMLO with media propaganda
In a press conference on June 9, the Mexican government published a leaked
strategy document purportedly drafted by the Broad Opposition Block, titled
“Let’s Rescue Mexico” (Rescatemos a México). The AMLO administration said it
did not know the origin of the leak.
These pages consist of an executive summary of “Project BOA,” outlining what it
calls a “plan of action” – a blueprint of concrete steps the opposition
alliance will take to unseat AMLO.
BOA Rescatemos a Mexico executive summary
The cover of the leaked document, the executive summary of the Project BOA
plan, “Let’s Save Mexico”
One of the key points in the plan is the following: “Lobbying by the BOA in
Washington (White House and Capital Hill) to stress the damage that the
government of the [Fourth Transformation] is doing to North American investors.”
The lobbying strategy depends heavily on turning the US against AMLO: “More
than comparing it with Venezuela,” the document reads, “BOA should highlight
the very high mass migration of Mexicans toward the United States if the crisis
of unemployment and insecurity gets worse.”
Then the BOA adds: “Repeat this narrative in the US and European media.”
BOA AMLO Washington lobbying media
The section of the BOA plan on lobbying in Washington and using the media to
push anti-AMLO messaging
The leaked pages say that BOA has the “international press (USA and Europe)” on
its side, along with “foreign correspondents in Mexico.”
The document even names specific media outlets, along with individual
journalists and social media influencers, who could help spread their anti-AMLO
propaganda. On the list are some of the top news publications in Mexico: Nexos,
Proceso, Reforma, El Universal, Milenio, El Financiero, and El Economista.
BOA AMLO Mexican media journalists
The list of sympathetic anti-AMLO media outlets and journalists in the BOA
document
The “plan of action” makes it clear that this powerful opposition alliance
seeks to use its extensive control over the media to obsessively blame AMLO for
“unemployment, poverty, insecurity, and corruption” in Mexico.
BOA even states unambiguously in its plan that it will use “groups of social
media networks, influencers, and analysts to insist on the destruction of the
economy, of the democratic institutions, and the political authoritarianism of
the government of the 4T” (using an acronym for the Fourth Transformation
process).
This makes it especially ironic that the BOA document reluctantly acknowledges
that the López Obrador “government has managed to mitigate the economic impact
of the health crisis of coronavirus by giving large amounts of public money to
the affected, through social programs.”
The leaked pages likewise admit that AMLO has an approval rating of more than
50 percent — lower than his peak at 86 percent support in the beginning of 2019
or his 72 percent at the end of the year, but still impressive for a region
where US-backed leaders like Chile’s Sebastián Piñera or Colombia’s Iván Duque
have routinely enjoyed approval ratings of 6 percent and 24 percent,
respectively.
Jenaro Villamil
✔
@jenarovillamil
#ConferenciaPresidente. Presentan un documento confidencial de un presunto
Bloque Opositor Amplio (BOA) para desplazar a Morena y al gobierno actual en
las elecciones del 2021.
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Mexico’s establishment political parties and former presidents unite to oust
AMLO
With backing from the US government and utter dominance of media narratives,
the Broad Opposition Block plan is to unite all of Mexico’s establishment
political parties.
Together, these parties could potentially run candidates under the BOA
umbrella, according to the document. Their goal would be, in the 2021
legislative elections, to end the majority that AMLO’s left-wing party Morena
won in Mexico’s Chamber of Deputies.
After that, BOA states clearly that it plans to block reforms in the Mexican
legislature, and ultimately impeach President López Obrador by 2022 — at least
two years before his term ends.
Quite revealing is that the “Let’s Rescue Mexico” document does not mention
anything about average working-class Mexicans and their participation in the
political process. Nor does it acknowledge the existence of labor unions or
grassroots activist organizations, which make up the base of AMLO’s movement
and his Morena party.
This is not surprising, considering the BOA alliance lists some of the most
powerful figures in the Mexican ruling class.
All the major political parties are included: the right-wing National Action
Party (Partido Acción Nacional, or PAN), the center-right Institutional
Revolutionary Party (Partido Revolucionario Institucional, or PRI), the
centrist Citizens’ Movement (Movimiento Ciudadano, or MC), and even AMLO’s
former Party of the Democratic Revolution (Partido de la Revolución
Democrática, or PRD).
BOA AMLO political parties
The list of political parties included in the BOA document
BOA also includes the new political party México Libre, a vehicle for former
right-wing President Felipe Calderón, a major ally of George W. Bush who
declared a catastrophic “war on drugs” in Mexico, leading to tens of thousands
of deaths.
Along with Calderón, BOA lists former President Vicente Fox, another right-wing
US ally, as a coalition ally. Fox worked closely with the Bush administration
during his term as president to isolate the leftist governments in Latin
America, and even tried to undemocratically remove AMLO as mayor of Mexico City
and ban him from running for president.
BOA also says it has support from the governors of 14 states in Mexico, along
with opposition lawmakers in both the Senate and Chamber of Deputies, judges
from the Electoral Tribunal of the Federal Judiciary (TEPJF), and officials
from the National Electoral Institute (INE).
Wall Street investors and Mexican oligarchs back anti-AMLO alliance
Joining the entire Mexican political establishment in the Broad Opposition
Block is a powerful financial oligarchy, both domestic and foreign.
Along with its “anti-4T lobbyists in Washington,” the leaked document says BOA
has “Wall Street investment funds” behind it.
BOA adds that it is supported by “corporations linked to T-MEC,” using the
Spanish acronym for the new “United States–Mexico–Canada Agreement” free-trade
deal, known popularly as NAFTA 2.0.
BOA AMLO Washington Wall Street T-MEC press
The powerful business groups and corporations listed in the BOA document
Some of the richest capitalists in Mexico are associated with BOA. Named in the
leaked document is the Mexican corporate behemoth FEMSA and oligarchs from its
associated Monterrey Group, which the New York Times once described as a “a
tightly knit family of wealthy and conservative businessmen.”
The BOA pages also point to Mexico’s powerful Business Coordinating Council
(Consejo Coordinador Empresarial) and Employers Confederation of the Mexican
Republic (Coparmex) as allies.
Opposition denies involvement in BOA, while turning up heat on AMLO
In the days after López Obrador’s press conference exposing the Broad
Opposition Block, some of the prominent figures implicated in the alliance,
such Felipe Calderón, denied involvement.
Some of these political and economic elites even claimed BOA doesn’t exist,
seeking to cast doubt on the president’s scandalous revelation and accusing him
of fabricating the scandal.
But their efforts are clearly part of a larger campaign by Mexican opposition
groups to remove President Andrés Manuel López Obrador from power. As AMLO’s
Fourth Transformation moves forward, their destabilization tactics have grown
increasingly extreme.
López Obrador himself has warned of the radicalization of the right-wing
opposition. As The Grayzone previously reported, the president made an ominous
reference to the threat of a potential coup in November 2019.
Referencing Mexico’s former President Francisco Madero, a leader of the Mexican
Revolution and fellow left-winger who was assassinated in 1913, AMLO tweeted,
“How wrong the conservatives and their hawks are… Now is different… Another
coup d’état won’t be allowed.”
