"It seems to me that López Obrador knows what poor people are experiencing, the needs of the people," says María del Carmen Chan, a 39-year-old homemaker in southern Campeche state, who welcomes the president's cash handouts as a godsend. "Before he came to power, you felt like they gave you leftovers."

Corrections & Amplifications

This item was corrected at 2:51 p.m. ET to show that former Mexico correspondent Alan Riding is still living. An earlier version incorrectly referred to him as late.

This article was corrected at 7:10 p.m. ET because the original version misspelled the name of Shannon O'Neil, a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York.

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

06-04-21 1115ET