15-02-2018: Latin American Weekly Report

on 1 July is over. In some respects, it was a bit of a damp squib. The three principal presidential aspirants stood unopposed so the envisaged internal contests to deepen democratic participation never took place. The pre- campaign was instructive, however, because while it was not designed as such it served as a forerunner of the campaign proper with the main candidates seeking to gain some traction. Above all, it showed that Andrés Manuel López Obrador, the early frontrunner, will stay the course, applying the lessons of his two failed bids for the presidency in 2006 and 2012, and benefiting from propitious external developments.