RE: Overweight29 May 2024 13:42
That was what probably held FRES in limbo for the last few months. From Louis James letter:
Mexico Risk
I spoke with many people about the political situation in Mexico on my recent trip there. Almost everyone thinks that Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo, AMLO’s anointed successor, will be Mexico’s next president. The election is on June 2. There’s no run-off. If she wins by a single vote, she gets the presidential sash.
My “man on the street” interviews with Claudia supporters suggest that she does agree with AMLO’s hostility to mining.
This is no surprise, given that she’s an academic who’s written over 100 articles and two books on energy, the environment, and sustainable development.
Or at least, she pretends to be uber-green, as that’s what it took to get the Green party’s endorsement.
Either way is bad.
She may still stab both in the back once she’s in office, of course. My family sources with government connections see this as human nature—at least, the nature of the type of human who becomes president of Mexico.
That’s a nice hope, but hope is not a rational basis for speculation.
The good news, such as it is, is that Claudia is seen by anyone not in the AMLO camp as such an unmitigated evil, her opposition is unusually united. Even the PAN (right-wing party) and the PRD (hard left party) have joined forces with their old nemesis the PRI (former ruling party) to support the alternative candidate, Xóchitl Gálvez Ruiz (Xochi, pronounced “Sochee”).
It doesn’t prove anything, but as it happens, I saw only pro-Xochi marchers in the streets during my visit. No Claudia marchers.
Now, Xochi is still behind—polling at about 34% to Claudia’s 54%—but conservatives say that Mexico suffers from the equivalent of US liberal media bias. The media largely support AMLO, and so the polls are seen as slanted to create the impression of an insuperable lead by Claudia. They say that Xochi will surprise The Mexican Powers That Be the way Trump surprised the liberal establishment in the US in 2016. It’d help if the third highest-polling candidate, Jorge Alvarez Máynez, bowed out and encouraged his 10% to back Xochi.
Again, that’s a nice hope, but there’s absolutely no clarity on the odds here. This too fails to count as a basis for rational speculation.
What to do?
The safe way to play this is to assume that Claudia will win, that she’ll be very bad news for mining—even underground mining—and to reduce or eliminate exposure.
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