Why is AMLO one of the world's most popular politicians? We took a road trip through Mexico to find out

SAYULA DE ALEMAN, Mexico — From the roadside stand in this muggy stretch of southern Mexico where Carmelo Morrugares sells coconuts for a living, the 45-year-old father of three says he can see his country changing for the better.

There's his pay, which has doubled from $5 to $10 daily thanks to a series of minimum-wage hikes. And there are the hefty welfare payments that his elderly father and student daughter now receive from the government.

Then there's the highway itself, repaved amid a boom of fresh investment across the impoverished south.

For all this good fortune, Morrugares credits one man: President Andrés Manuel López Obrador.

"He's a visionary," said Morrugares, who cheered on the president recently as he zipped past the coconut stand on his way to promote a refurbished train line that will pass through this region. That the famously frugal López Obrador traversed the dense tropical forest by car instead of helicopter said it all.

"Presidents before would just fly over," Morrugares said. "We've never had a leader so close to the people."

That sort of praise isn't something you hear much in Mexico's wealthier enclaves, where criticism of López Obrador and his , his hypersensitivity to critique and his insistence that every problem can be blamed on a single enemy — the rich.