In the 2018 Mexican general election, Andrés Manuel López Obrador (known as “AMLO”) swept to victory. His presidential victory coincided with the historic collapse of the Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI). Barring losses in 2000 and 2006, the PRI had ruled Mexico uninterrupted since 1929 (under three different titles). In 2012, PRI’s Enrique Peña Nieto won the presidency with 39.17%; but by 2018, the PRI received just 16.4% of the vote compared with the 54.71% (the largest margin since 1982) received by AMLO’s Movimiento Regeneración Nacional (MORENA). The issue of corruption was front and center in this election, and AMLO explicitly framed it as a systemic byproduct of neoliberalism. While markets were initially rattled, capital was not in an outright panic; AMLO had broadly promised that “his government will not spend beyond its means.” In 2018, The Economist cited “uncertainty,” but three years later AMLO’s face was plastered on their print edition as “Mexico’s false messiah.”

The Economist alluded to various ruinous policies, but it is AMLO’s actions in the energy sector that justified the typical association of a leftist leader with proto-fascist figures such as Viktor Orban, Narendra Modi, and Jair Bolsonaro. AMLO’s energy reforms are geared toward reasserting energy sovereignty over an (increasingly foreign) private sector that owns most of Mexico’s renewable energy. The subsequent contestation has sparked national referendums, attempted constitutional amendments, and cases in the country’s supreme court. The market-led transition creates such contestations wherever it leads. It generally wins. Thus, the battle for Mexico’s energy sector offers an essential example for the left—and for South Africa’s especially.