How Mexican teachers unions are pushing the presidential frontrunner left | Salon.com

How Mexican teachers unions are pushing the presidential frontrunner left | Salon.com:

How Mexican teachers unions are pushing the presidential frontrunner left

López Obrador is signaling his support for the thousands of communities fighting privatization across Mexico

This article originally appeared in In These Times

As Mexico moves closer to the July 1 Presidential election, candidate Andrés Manuel López Obrador (commonly referred to AMLO) is signaling his support for the thousands of communities fighting privatization across Mexico. López Obrador hails from the Juntos Haremos Historia coalition — a center-left coalition of National Regeneration Movement Party, The Labor Party and the Social Encounter Party. He is the former mayor of Mexico City and widely considered to be the frontrunner. López Obrador has found a significant ally in the Oaxacan teachers of Sección XXII, who are pushing the candidate to take a more left-leaning position on privatization and reject controversial education reforms.

On May 12, López Obrador announced in a speech in Puebla that he rejects privatization programs of previous administrations. "Privatization policies are over,” he declared. “Water will not be privatized; health services will not be privatized.”

 Among the privatization efforts he focused on were the education reforms passed by Enrique Pena Nieto, calling the measures “a humiliation of the teachers.” López Obrador announced in mid-May that he would end the education reform.

The announcement represents the culmination of resistance to the controversial reforms, according to the teachers of Oaxaca’s Sección 22 of the National Union of Education Workers (Sindicato Nacional de Trabajadores de la Educación, or SNTE) and The National Coordinator of Education Workers (Coordinadora Nacional de Trabajadores de la Educación, or CNTE).

The teachers' decision to pursue an agreement with the López Obrador was made in Februaryduring the V Political Congress of Sección XXII. Eloy López Hernández, Sección XXII’s General Secretary, announced the decision “to influence this electoral situation by orienting the conscious and reasoned vote towards the bases, to the parents of family and society in general, to being guarantors of the popular will in favor of the alternative project of nation" that López Obrador's campaign represents. Carlos Barriosa, a member the political section of Sección XXII, is using a Continue reading: How Mexican teachers unions are pushing the presidential frontrunner left | Salon.com: