On Sunday next week, Mexicans will be electing hundreds of legislators and other state and local officials. They should absolutely not vote for Morena, the party of incumbent president Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, popularly known as AMLO. That is the opinion of the British weekly newspaper The Economist, which has just published a highly critical article about the man and his policies.

The piece labeled AMLO "Mexico's false messiah," claiming that he is "a danger to Mexican democracy" and that his power needs to be curtailed. The magazine brought up several arguments to back the stance, saying, for example, that the president "calls a lot of votes, but not always on topics that are best resolved by voting." Holding a referendum to measure public support for a "pet project" or for a decision to prosecute former senior officials on corruption charges is, according to The Economist, "a stunt" and "a mockery of the rule of law."

Mexico's president was also accused of having "disdain for expertise" and "a love of ideas that have been tried and proved not to work" – like pushing private capital out of hydrocarbon extraction, electricity generation and distribution, and railroad transportation, or deploying the military to build infrastructure projects.