Following Mexico’s 2024 election, Claudia Sheinbaum has been sworn in as Mexico’s first female president. However, many fear that she will follow in the footsteps of her predecessor, Andrés Manuel Lopez Obrador (AMLO)– and what does this mean for Mexican politics?
Commentary
By Barbara Peña | Edited by Kayla Muller
As of October 1st, Mexico has reached a historic moment with Claudia Sheinbaum being sworn in as Mexico’s first female president. With the world’s lens focused on Mexico and international media rushing to congratulate the veteran politician, there remains a feeling of dissatisfaction among plenty of Mexican people who have seen the electoral season as a delicate one with a lot to lose.
Sheinbaum, being a member of the political left-wing party National Regeneration Movement (MORENA in Spanish) has been the protégé and now successor of the most recent former president of Mexico of the same party, Andrés Manuel Lopez Obrador or AMLO, as he’s commonly referred to. In Mexico, leftist political organizations are somewhat similar to the American left-wing/liberal party. In Mexico, the Leftist party was born out of the Mexican Revolution of 1910 which sought to overthrow the rich and powerful to redistribute these privileges to the Mexican working class. The term “partido izquierdista” (left-wing party) in Mexico, similar to the American one, is also closely attributed to progressive social movements such as LGBTQ+ rights, reproductive rights, and civil rights. AMLO aims to close the gap between the higher classes and lower classes in Mexico, not letting social and economic status be an obstacle to equality for any Mexican citizen. He’s done this by allocating money to the working class and senior citizens, and in fact, many Mexicans report they have seen an increase in their income in the past sexennial. He’s also increased Mexico’s country-wide minimum salary to 120%.
However, a critical difference from the US would be that Mexican “izquierdistas” advocate for state ownership of industries, for instance, with energy reforms and natural resources. There’s also a greater historical acceptance of socialist and Marxist ideas within the Mexican left. Middle and upper-class Mexicans may oppose AMLO and his leftist policies, which focus on an interventionist government that could limit private business opportunities, increase taxes, and disrupt their financial stability. The spread of Marxist ideas is also a concern since MORENA currently holds almost enough chairs in the House of Representatives to be able to make changes to the Mexican Constitution.
These conspiracies are not baseless since AMLO’s sexennial presidency has been marked by a complex relationship with the media, mainly because of his controversial comments in his “mañaneros” (daily morning press conferences). Mexico’s free-press media system allows for opposing views of the government, and AMLO has been accused of media control through legal pressures, financial incentives, or personal attacks on the press. The main reason for this has been that many Mexicans have been confused about the lack of negative press towards both AMLO and Sheinbaum when trying to become informed on their intentions for the country, and in AMLO’s case, his past controversies.
For instance, the apparent vanishing of his infamous insensitive and unintelligent phrase for combating crime in Mexico: “Abrazos, no balazos,” (hugs, not bullets). People have been upset about this phrase since he first said it in the first half of his presidency, as it downplays the urgency that is needed in Mexico for safer streets and crime reduction. In fact, according to Mexico’s National Institute of Statistics and Geography (INEGI), during AMLO’s sexennial, crime and murder have increased, not gone down.
If you read my previous Matthew article and are aware of the sensitive reality of femicides in Mexico, you know AMLO has been guilty of downplaying these crimes and switching blame. In his morning press conference in February 2021, he talked about the patriarchy and its responsibility to the injustices that women face: “What do we have to do with this if we are respectful of women, of all human beings?”. One year before that, on Monday, February 10, 2020, he said “Look, I don’t want the issue to be just about femicide, that’s already very clear. There has been a lot of manipulation on this issue in the media, not all of course, those who don’t see us in a good light take advantage of any circumstance to generate defamation campaigns, that’s clear, distorted, false information.”
AMLO’s mention of media manipulation is interesting as the amount of digging a person must do to find anything negative about him is plenty, which does not match up with the consensus of all the people who dislike AMLO in Mexico because of all his unpopular decisions in the past.
Any Mexican feminist can agree that AMLO is not even close to doing enough to fight sexual assault and murder in Mexico– but then again, you Google this, and you find articles like “AMLO, the most feminist president in contemporary history” from Forbes Mexico, and “‘We are not against women or the feminist movement’: AMLO” from Excelsior. What this context has to do with Claudia Sheinbaum is that people fear AMLO’s successor will follow him in avoiding the biggest problems in Mexico, which most Mexicans agree, are organized crime and general safety. With all of this in mind, the picture Sheinbaum paints for Mexico’s future is not promising, as not one of her proposals directly addresses this issue. The closest things she proposes are to increase the Armed Forces in the streets and do programs for Mexico’s youth to “discourage the recruit of them into organized crime.” Though this is great, it won’t end femicides, sexual violence, domestic violence, and workplace harassment.
However, there seems to be an interesting dichotomy in the rhetoric of what Sheinbaum represents for Mexico from Mexicans versus from the rest of the world. Unfortunately for the feminist movement in Mexico, Sheinbaum doesn’t represent anything for us for two reasons; One, as I said, she is the protege of AMLO and many people believe favoritism or even corruption could be one of the reasons why Claudia swept the popular vote. With this notion, it’s not the first win for feminism, it’s the millionth win for corruption. Two, none of Sheinbaum’s proposals seem to want to help women, and that’s what we would expect from our first woman president, considering the climate in which she postulated herself.
With Sheinbaum’s self-identified religion of Judaism, people have been excited to use her as a token and make a spectacle of Mexico’s open-mindedness in having our first Jewish leader in a historically catholic precedent of politics. However, this is not the case. With the mere fact of Mexico’s 1917 constitution establishment of separation of church and state, no religious beliefs are legally allowed to be brought to the table from politicians in Mexico. Regardless of Sheinbaum’s Jewishness being well known, Mexico is accepting and knowledgeable of all Abrahamic religions, including, of course, Roman Catholic, hence there would be little to no opposition to her being in a position of power because of her cultural heritage. The media’s infatuation with Sheinbaum’s religion is mere tokenism, and it says less about her being a challenge-overcomer and more about the fact that in Mexico, about 0.04 percent of the population are of Jewish heritage and identify with the religion, hence they are not a discriminated group in politics. In fact, according to historians, Jewish people in Mexico have, on average, a higher education and a higher economic status as opposed to their fellow non-Jewish Mexicans, so it would make sense for a person of this caliber to win support and win the presidency.
As the election season has come to an end, I’ve been inspired to write this article for the number of people I’ve seen in media and in real life congratulating Mexicans on this “win for equality,” disregarding all the facts I’ve stated in this article. However, as I’ve mentioned, world political media appreciates a catchy title such as “Mexico elects their first woman president in a historical win, as well as the first Jewish president,” rather than exploring all the context in which this has taken place.
Cultural hegemony is described as the dominance of a culturally diverse society in which beliefs, perceptions, and values from that culture become the accepted norm. In Mexico, we are uninterested in the ‘first’ something to take power unless it will make a difference. Mexico cannot afford another president who acts as if the issues in the country are non-existent or smaller than they are.
thematthewrome.com 