Exclusive: López Obrador rejects meeting with Alberto Fernández

Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has no plans to meet with Alberto Fernández. This was confirmed to LPO by sources at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and from the Mexican National Palace, where they claimed that the President will be on a tour in Tamaulipas over the weekend.

On Tuesday, there were versions circulating on the Argentinean press alleging that Fernández could arrive in Mexico from Madrid to meet AMLO. Now the Mexican government denies it. The presidential candidate is in Spain and will have a meeting with President Pedro Sanchez this Thursday at the Moncloa. Unlike the Mexican, Sanchez had no problem scheduling a meeting with the Argentinean candidate.

In Mexico, It is not customary for a President to meet with foreign presidential candidates. The protocol for elected presidents is different, something that Fernández will become, according to the polls, after 27 October. In Argentina, times are hurried because the Peronist ticket beat Macri's government in the primaries, which rules out the return of that party to the Casa Rosada.

There are, beyond the protocols, additional complications on the regional board. Macri is strongly supported by Donald Trump and Brasil's Jair Bolsonaro. At the moment the AMLO administration is extremely careful about any type of conflict with those two countries. To be photographed with Fernández could be a problem in that sense, especially because of the Venezuelan crisis: the Peronist has oscillating definitions on the situation of that country (a very similar discourse to that of AMLO) but that could generate friction in case of a reception.

In its initial phase, AMLO's government has also shown a pragmatic harmony with Macri. The most glaring proof is that the Mexican Ministry of Foreign Affairs supports the Argentine government in a lawsuit in the U.S. against oil giant YPF. Mexico and Chile are the "amicus curiae" that play for Argentina in that conflict.