Mexican president André Manuel López Obrador is approaching the final year of his one-term sexenio. With attention now turning to a hotly contested succession struggle, and his legacy of policy accomplishments largely solidified, some have begun to draw up a balance sheet of his time in office.

Over the last five years, Kurt Hackbarth has chronicled the ups and downs of AMLO’s Morena government for Jacobin. There have been unalloyed positives: strong macroeconomic indicators; greater working-class purchasing power; public control over the energy sector; a reinvigorated labor movement; and independent leadership on the international stage.

There have also been some low points: López Obrador’s poor relationship with the country’s feminist movement and his failure to answer for rising cartel violence stand out. Other legacies are proving more mixed: AMLO’s large-scale infrastructure projects drew heavy fire from environmentalists, and his expansion of the Mexican Army defies a national tradition of limiting the role of the military.