MEXICO ushered in a new era of politics after the inauguration of its new President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (Amlo) on Saturday, who promised to end the calamity of neoliberalism and corruption.

Amlo became the first left-wing president for seven decades as he began his six-year term of office, receiving the presidential sash in the Mexican Congress.

He announced that he would not stand in another election and promised a “recall referendum” to allow voters the option of removing elected officials through a direct vote.

“I no longer belong to myself, I belong to you, I belong to the people of Mexico,” he said.

The former mayor of Mexico City announced a series of sweeping changes, including scrapping controversial education reforms and banning fracking as he led a devastating critique of neoliberalism.

“We will carry out a peaceful and orderly but also deep and radical transformation,” he said.

He slammed the accumulation of wealth among the elite which he said had impoverished the people of Mexico.

“Neoliberalism has been a calamity. For example, the energy reform that was meant to save us has only meant a fall in the production of oil and the increase in gasoline, diesel and electricity prices.

“Before neoliberalism, we produced and were self-sufficient in gas, diesel. Now we buy more than half. In this period the purchasing power of salaries has been slashed.

“Neoliberalism is corruption. It sounds strong, but privatisation in Mexico has meant corruption,” he said.

Supporters gathered at the official residence of Los Pinos, which Amlo refuses to live in and has instead turned into a public museum.

He won July’s presidential election with 53 per cent of the vote and his National Regeneration Movement (Morena) will lead a coalition government after it defeated the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), which had dominated Mexican politics for decades.

Morena parliamentarian Mario Delgado Carrillo welcomed the Amlo presidency as “the end of a corrupt and unjust government and the inauguration of a government of the people for the people.”

One of the first issues the new president faces is the migrant crisis, with thousands of refugees fleeing violence and poverty in Central America living in squalid conditions on the country’s US border.

He signed an agreement with El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras as one of his first acts in office to develop a plan to tackle the situation, including the establishment of a fund to generate jobs in the region and attack the structural causes of migration.