López Obrador Reappears With Video Message as Sheinbaum Marks Two Years

Palenque, Chiapas — Former President Andrés Manuel López Obrador reappeared on social media with a video message recorded at La Chingada, his property in Palenque, Chiapas, in which he restated his retirement from politics and presented his new book, Pueblo, one day before President Claudia Sheinbaum completes two years in office.

“For my part, I want to tell you that I have been well, that thanks to the creator, to science, to luck, thanks to life, I am content, I am happy,” the former president said at the start of the message, in which he appeared seated in a rocking chair wearing a white guayabera.

López Obrador stressed that the property where he lives is not a ranch. “It is a country property, a hectare and a half, a little less, that my parents left me,” he said.

“As you know, I am retired from politics after nearly 50 years of fighting intensely for justice, for liberty, for democracy, for transforming our country. The time came when I closed my cycle,” he said.

The Tabasco native defended the Fourth Transformation as the fourth great change in Mexico’s public life, after Independence, the Reform and the Revolution. In his account he highlighted Francisco I. Madero as the “apostle of democracy” and took aim at defenders of the Porfirio Díaz regime, the PRI and neoliberal governments.

Pueblo, he explained, was originally going to be titled Gloria and is devoted to Mexico’s political history. He changed the title because in a genuine democracy the sovereign is the people. With this work and Grandeza, his previous book, the former president said he has finished laying out his so-called Mexican Humanism, which he summed up with the motto “for the good of all, first the poor.”

A Retirement With Occasional Appearances

López Obrador handed over the presidential sash on Oct. 1, 2024, and has lived in Palenque since then, making few public appearances. His previous video message came on Nov. 30, 2025, when he presented Grandeza.

In 2026 he broke his silence three times through written statements: on Jan. 3, over U.S. intervention in Venezuela and the capture of Nicolás Maduro; on March 14, in support of Cuba amid the U.S. oil blockade; and on June 3, with a letter in which he called for the return of the Donald Trump of his first term.

Two Years of Sheinbaum

The reappearance coincides with the close of the second year of the first woman to hold Mexico’s presidency. In her second State of the Union address, sent to Congress on Sept. 1, Sheinbaum touted economic stability, a strengthened peso and a reduction in homicides despite U.S. tariff policy.

On security, under the leadership of Omar García Harfuch, the federal government reported the seizure of 32,000 firearms and 519 tons of drugs, the arrest of more than 60,000 suspected criminals and the dismantling of 2,725 clandestine drug labs.

The president’s approval rating stood at 69 percent in an Enkoll poll for El País and W Radio, ten points below the level recorded a year earlier, following the impact of U.S. accusations against Sinaloa Gov. Rubén Rocha Moya over alleged ties to drug trafficking. El Financiero put her approval at 68 percent, with favorable marks on social programs and the economy and negative marks on security and the fight against corruption.

The second anniversary also opens the countdown to the 2027 midterm elections, in which Morena will put its dominance to the test and Quintana Roo will elect a new governor.