Border town blues: Mexico heads to the polls with trepidation as Left-wing 'Amlo' poised for presidency

Alfonso Romo is not a man afraid of a challenge.

The multimillionaire businessman, from the sprawling industrial city of Monterrey, was approached by his country’s veteran Leftist leader with a simple appeal: help me.

Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, a household name in Mexico for decades, was running for the presidency for the third time. Amlo, as he is known, knew that his open admiration for Fidel Castro and scepticism about Nafta had the business community spooked. He realised that questioning contracts already signed to build the capital city’s new airport and privatise the country’s oil industry were worrying investors.

So he turned to Mr Romo, a spry 68-year-old whose biotech, agricultural, insurance and tobacco interests were estimated by Forbes to be worth $2.4 billion in the late 1990s.  And for the past 18 months Mr Romo has criss-crossed the northern, Amlo-sceptic states selling his boss’s promises for a business-friendly, Leftist future.

He laughs when asked if it has been a tough sell. 

“Every day our relations with the business community are getting better,” he told The Sunday Telegraph.

“There have been so many myths. So I brought people together – it’s never been done before. We sat down, and we talked.”

On Sunday Mr Romo will find out if it has worked. He will be Mr Lopez Obrador’s chief of staff if they triumph in the polls. 

Mr Lopez Obrador has certainly dominated the campaign, with a seemingly unassailable lead over his opponents – Ricardo Anaya, a 39-year-old lawyer for the PAN, and, for the ruling PRI, 49-year-old Jose Antonio Meade, a former foreign, energy, social development and finance minister, whose CV shone far brighter than ever his electoral chances did. 

Mr Romo, eyes twinkling with energy on the eve of the vote, thinks his work in the north has played a significant role.

“We’re gaining strength in the north,” he said. “The middle class support we have there keeps growing. 

“Mexico is tired of corruption and insecurity, and wants a change. So we all were at the table.”

He pauses, then adds with a wink: “Well, some weren’t.” 

It is a telling, and surprisingly honest, admission. Mr Lopez Obrador’s support is strongest in the southern and central states; the north, whose politics is inevitably clouded by closeness to the US market, has always been suspicious of the Left-wing populist. 

Furthermore, the northern states have paid a heavy price in the decade of drug wars – Mr Lopez Obrador’s suggestion in December of an amnesty for cartel members was greeted with disgust in Ciudad Juarez, from 2008-12 the most murderous city in the world, and a place where the violence is once again on the rise.

A fortnight ago 22 people were murdered in one weekend as the cartels appear to have resumed their war; locals speak sadly of the return to the dark days, when the streets were deserted at night and fear gripped the city.

And nationwide, May was the deadliest month in Mexico since the government first published homicide data 20 years ago.

According to the national registry, 2,890 people were killed in one month — roughly 93 victims per day, or four per hour. Since January, the figure is 13,298: a 21 per cent increase on the same period last year.

Chihuahua, the state in which Ciudad Juarez sits, has never voted for Mr Lopez Obrador – in 2006 he limped home with 18 per cent of the vote. Six years later it had only risen marginally, to 23 per cent support.

Now he is the front runner, having chosen the city of Ciudad Juarez for his April 1 campaign launch, with 29 per cent of support, and risen steadily since.

“If he wins, there will be a huge black cloud over our heads,” said Juan Ubaldo Benavente Bermudez, one of Ciudad Juarez’s most prominent businessmen.

“I know that people are desperate for a change. But not an extreme change like this.”

Mr Benavente’s grandfather Jaime Bermudez, who died on Monday aged 95, was universally known as “the father of the maquiladoras” – duty and tariff free factories, producing goods for export.

In the 1960s he pioneered the first industrial parks in Mexico, attracting foreign investment for factories making everything from car parts to phones to freezers. Today Mr Benavente’s family is one of the biggest players in an industry that comprises of 400 maquiladoras, employing 350,000 people directly – and three times that indirectly.

“This election is without doubt one of the most important in my lifetime,” he said. “And business hates uncertainty. I think there will be capital flight, and foreign investment will freeze. I really hope he doesn’t win.”

Mr Benavente was one of the first to be summoned to Mr Romo’s round table, held in Ciudad Juarez a year and a half ago. He didn’t know why the 30-odd industrialists had been assembled and was surprised when, at the end of their dinner, Mr Romo told them all he was supporting Mr Lopez Obrador.

“I said to him, ‘Poncho (his nickname), what are you doing?’” he recalled. He pulled out his iPhone to show YouTube videos of Hugo Chavez making very similar statements to Mr Lopez Obrador, and of an ally of Mr Lopez Obrador declaring her support for Venezuela’s government, in 2013.

“And he replied: ‘Don’t worry. That won’t happen.’” 

Those who depend on Mr Benavente’s maquiladoras share his concerns.

Isela Ivonne Villaverde, 46, yelped when asked about the prospect of an Amlo presidency. Her job is to recruit people daily for maquiladora work – around 60 people a day sign up, she said, for shifts in the factories earning 1,400 pesos (£50) a week.

“He’ll drive the businesses away and turn us into Cuba,” she said. “And without the maquiladoras, Juarez dies – there is nothing else here.”

But Mr Lopez Obrador has put in place an experienced team of economists and financiers, and promised to protect businesses. Former former World Trade Organization economist Jesus Seade would lead Nafta negotiations with the US and Canada, Mr Lopez Obrador has said. He has vowed to preserve the independence of the central bank, and sworn against raising taxes. Why is she worried?

“He says what people want to hear,” she replied. “I don’t believe a word he says. They are all the same – blah, blah, blah. 

“Personally, I’d rather have Chapo as president – he looked after his own people, and at least we know he’s a crook.”

Far from the factories, Noel Molina was concerned about the repercussions for his ranch, where 800 Angus cattle graze on 8,000 hectares.

For three generations his family have farmed in Parral, in southern Chihuahua, 380 miles from the border – with 95 per cent of their prize cattle being sold in the US.

“We’re not angry at his having a social project,” said Mr Molina, who trained as a lawyer and helped negotiate Nafta. “But he also has to care for those who generate jobs. Radical extremes of Left or Right are proven not to work.”

Mr Molina said Mr Romo’s presence in Amlo’s team was reassuring, noting that he understood agriculture.

“But we’re all holding our breath. The future of our country is in play.”

Much depends, of course, on Mr Lopez Obrador’s relationship with President Donald Trump.

Mr Lopez Obrador has charted a careful course of avoiding antagonising Mr Trump during the campaign, while also promising to protect Mexico.

“Mexico is a free and sovereign country, and will never be used as a piñata by any foreign government,” he said on Wednesday, at his campaign closure rally.

“We have to understand each other, and work together. We do not disrespect them, because we ourselves demand respect in return.”

Crucial to this delicate dance of wily and stubborn nationalists will be Rudy Giuliani, head of Mr Trump’s legal team, who knows both men well.

In 2002, shortly after he stepped down as New York’s mayor, Mr Giuliani scored a $4.3 million consultancy contract from Mr Lopez Obrador – then the mayor of Mexico City – to advise on reducing crime.  Mr Giuliani was personally involved, visiting regularly, and returned to Mexico City in 2013 to declare success.

"All his life, Andrés has been a very tough negotiator, like Trump,” said Marcelo Ebrard, a senior official on the Lopez Obrador campaign, in an interview with the FT.

“They’re alike in that way. I think Trump will respect him because Andrés is not weak, he’s no Chamberlain."

Mr Ebrard insists that the policies of a Lopez Obrador government might actually suit Mr Trump. He wants to kick-start development of Mexico’s depressed south so that people would not have to leave in search of better opportunities.

“We don’t want people to emigrate. They’re saying very similar things in a different language.”

John Ackerman, a US-born journalist and close ally of Mr Lopez Obrador, insisted that relations with the US would improve.

“Lopez Obrador has a real possibility to make things better – it will be a dignified, respectful discussion coming from a leader who has the support of the Mexican people,” he said.

“There is no need for a cheap discourse or insults, as he has a position of strength – there’s no point in Trump bashing.”

But, he added, it will be a change from the “servile” attitude of Mexico’s current president, Enrique Pena Nieto, who is criticised to this day for inviting then-candidate Trump to Mexico City, rolling out the red carpet for the hated New Yorker.

And the north will be key.

“Chihuahua is like Ohio for the US – one of the most important swing states,” he said. “It’s a border state, and the biggest in the country. It was the home of Pancho Villa, the famous revolutionary general, and is always something of a laboratory, a harbinger of what’s to come.

“And we’ve been very successful there.”

Mr Romo was equally confident – smiling and shrugging when asked whether relations with the US would be difficult.

“It’s a question of time,” he said. “We’ll get there. It’ll all be fine.”