Do we like Andrés Manuel López Obrador?
Our score: 5 out of 10. Some real good for the poor and a public stand against attacks on LGBTQ+ people, set against a fossil-fuel push, run-ins with electoral bodies and heavily fact-checked claims.
López Obrador is Mexico's former president, and these days he lives on his ranch in Palenque, Chiapas. He says he is retired, though in a December 2025 video he said he would return to public activism if democracy, the president or national sovereignty were under threat. His Morena party still dominates federal and regional politics, so the retirement is a bit more theoretical than the postcard suggests.
On the harm test, the biggest knock is on women and the press. In a 2020 opinion column, Human Rights Watch wrote that he attacked the media almost daily and said most domestic-violence calls to 911 were false. HRW also said he dismissed feminism as unpopular and downplayed Covid-19 risks. That is HRW's reading of his words, from early in his term, and his defenders would say it is hostile.
On the planet, the record is poor. The Independent reported in 2023 that his government favoured fossil fuels, with a Houston refinery purchase and a new Tabasco refinery that he called climate actions. The Tren Maya went ahead with a national security designation that critics said sidestepped an environmental impact assessment. He called environmental groups foreign agents, though the same report says he does not deny climate change.
The truth-telling is where he struggles. Fact-checker Verificado reviewed 538 verifiable claims from his first year of morning press conferences and found 53 per cent false or misleading. In 2023 the INE ordered him to stay off electoral matters, and the electoral tribunal ruled some of his remarks about Senator Xóchitl Gálvez could be gender-based political violence. He denied that, saying he had spoken the truth. In 2022 critics also alleged his party was in cahoots with organised crime, which he denied, saying they could not prove anything.
The good side is real. A June 2025 OECD report found Mexican government policies cut relative poverty by 3.9 percentage points between 2012 and 2021, more than in any other member country. It credited welfare programs, jobs programs and minimum wage rises. That period spans more than his own term, so the credit is shared, but his signature wage and welfare push sits squarely in it.
So the call: not a villain, not a hero. He gets credit for the poverty push and for backing LGBTQ+ people in 2022, and loses points for the fossil-fuel and Tren Maya record, the HRW criticisms and the many claims that fact-checkers rated false or misleading. A supporter of social justice could back him on welfare and still wince at the rest.