Mexico too? Electorate to rebel against the ­established order? By The Economist.

Lopez Obrador, who has run for the presidency twice before, has a folksy air of incorruptibility that enchants many Mexicans. He promises a “radical revolution”. …

The nationalist populism he offers is unlike anything Mexico has seen since the early 1980s. And if the polls are right, he will win.

With that, Latin America’s ­second-biggest country will join a clutch of democracies where electorates have rebelled against the ­established order. What is about to happen in Mexico feels akin to the election of Donald Trump, Britain’s vote to leave the EU and Italy’s turn towards populism.

The causes of popular anger vary. In Latin America, as elsewhere, voters are furious at elites they regard as corrupt, ineffectual and condescending. Just as American populists decry the “swamp” in Washington, Lopez Obrador fulminates against the “mafia of power” he claims controls Mexico. …

The main source of Mexicans’ discontent is not inequality but crime and corruption, which have run riot under Pena. The murder rate has broken a record set in 2011. The ruling party has seen countless scandals. It emerged that Pena’s wife’s $US7m home had ­belonged to a government contractor.

In an ordinary election, Mexicans would ditch Pena’s ­Institutional Revolutionary Party and turn back to the conservative National Action Party. But after its last crime-ridden years in power, from 2006 to 2012, they are fed up with that, too.

hat-tip Stephen Neil