Mexico’s president gets many of his ideas from the 1960s and 1970s. Back then Mexico had yet to embrace economic liberalisation or democracy, and state-owned energy companies dominated the economy. As a young politician, Andrés Manuel López Obrador watched Pemex, the oil giant created by nationalising private firms in the 1930s, spread largesse around Tabasco, his home state. Mexico has changed a lot since those days, as has the energy business. Mr López Obrador’s thinking has not.

Since becoming president in 2018, Mr López Obrador has repeatedly tried to recreate that antiquated model of state-led and fossil-fuel-powered energy. He has pumped public money into building a refinery in Tabasco, at a cost of at least $8bn, and into propping up the ailing Pemex. His latest attempt to turn back the clock is a constitutional amendment which, if passed, will hand back control of the electricity market to the state-owned electricity company, cfe. It would be a disaster for the country.


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