The future of democracy and the investment climate in Mexico are in peril at this moment. Lame-duck President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (known universally as AMLO) has a very clear roadmap to finish his tenure in the National Palace. He wants to consolidate his party's parliamentary supermajority, reform the judiciary and eliminate all the checks and balances.
Long story short, he wants to exterminate democracy in Mexico by installing a totalitarian regime in the style of Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela.
First, by creating new artificial seats in the legislative branch, AMLO has managed to ensure, through pressure and persuasion, more than 73 percent of seats in the Lower House. He is also attempting to undermine judicial independence by establishing the election of all judges by popular vote.
The Mexican government has claimed that these reforms would establish a judiciary with true independence and strengthen democracy. In practice, they would accomplish the opposite, while also lowering professional standards and creating vulnerabilities to political, economic and criminal organizations in a nation where drug cartels are still shockingly powerful.
Bank of America believes that the........