Mexico's president touts austerity on his way out of office but lavishes largesse on friends
Mexico's outgoing president has always taken pride in his reputation as a penny-pincher, cutting funds for most government agencies and states
MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexico’s outgoing president has always taken pride in his reputation as a penny-pincher but on Friday, three days before leaving office, Andrés Manuel López Obrador announced generous cash giveaways for his allies in a radical union movement.
It was part of what analysts call López Obrador's contradictory policies of cutting some government services to the bone while handing out vast amounts for his own pet projects and to political supporters.
He granted an electrical workers' union about $95 million a year in unearned pension benefits, describing it as “an act of justice.”
In 2009, some 7,000 of the unionized workers from the debt-ridden, corrupt and overstaffed government power company were laid off. Still, they spent the next decade supporting López Obrador's two subsequent presidential campaigns.
