Claudia Sheinbaum took the helm a year ago riding a high wave. With 60 per cent of the vote and a supermajority for her party MORENA in both chambers, the Mexican President entered office in October 2024 with an approval rating of around 70 per cent – a figure she has not only sustained but during some months surpassed, reaching the 80s, making her among the most popular leaders in the world. With a clear mandate, Sheinbaum has pushed through a slew of constitutional reforms, expanded welfare programmes and successfully navigated a fraught relationship with the Trump administration. Sheinbaum – whose tenure as mayor of Mexico City (2018-2023) saw a 40 per cent drop in the murder rate – has also made inroads into the country’s notorious problem with organised crime: although regional violence remains high and the recent murder of Carlos Manzo, mayor of Uruapan, has dampened any triumphalism, Sheinbaum’s government can boast a 37 per cent reduction in homicides.
The political cycle which began with the 2018 election of Sheinbaum’s predecessor and political mentor, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, has been distinguished by significant democratic legitimacy. According to the recently released OECD Trust Survey 54 per cent of Mexicans have a high or moderately high trust in the federal government, well above the average of 39 per cent. A Gallup poll from last year indicated that ‘confidence in national government’ had jumped from 29 per cent to 61 per cent since MORENA took power, and that ‘confidence in the honesty of Mexico’s elections’ had risen by 25 points. The Pew Research Center has likewise shown that Mexicans’ ‘satisfaction with their democracy’ has soared by a remarkable 36 points between 2017 and 2019. This legitimacy is premised on the gains of MORENA’s post-neoliberal social pact – AMLO’s ‘Fourth Transformation’, a national renewal conceived in a lineage of historic upheavals, beginning with the struggle for independence in the 19th century. During López Obrador’s term real wages went up nearly 30 per cent and over 13 million were lifted out of poverty.
Yet building the transformation’s ‘second storey’, as Sheinbaum has described her mission, has revealed crucial tensions besetting the populist left-wing project: expanding welfare with a dilapidated state apparatus; pursuing neo-developmentalist strategies amid escalating ecological crisis; passing progressive taxation reform in a context of stagnant economic growth; freeing Mexico’s economy from its subordinate status in transnational circuits of capital without abandoning global markets tout court. These interlocking issues illuminate not only the specificities of the Mexican case but the structural limits and strategic dilemmas facing progressive forces worldwide.
Second floors also require different engineering and adaptation to stresses that were not apparent at ground level. Sheinbaum has had to contend, first, with the classic problem for incumbents of having to campaign and govern on, as she puts it, ‘continuity with change’. As the torchbearer of the Fourth Transformation, she possesses a symbolic weight that both empowers and constrains her. She must be a leader, must renew and reconstitute the governing bloc, but has to do so while doubling down on her adherence to AMLO’s legacy. At the political level, this involves not only testing whether obradorismo can function without its namesake, but setting in place the institutional infrastructure required for a transformed political order. At the economic level, this has entailed a balancing act between sovereignty and global market integration, made more dramatic by the contradictory pressures emanating from Mexico’s northern neighbour. Sheinbaum’s presidency so far could be defined as having two major goals: overseeing the emergence of a new institutionalism that channels democratic power; and reanimating state-led capitalist developmentalism, a strategy of import substitution industrialization adapted to the 21st century.
How does a movement built around a charismatic figure survive their departure? AMLO, who founded MORENA in 2011 and was an omnipresent figure in Mexican politics until he ceded the presidency last year, has bowed out of the limelight, retiring to his bucolic one-hectare estate in Palenque, Chiapas. Until the recent release of a video promoting the publication of a book, he had made no public pronouncements since leaving the presidency. The vacuum has certainly provoked uncertainty and a reshuffling of political alliances, and stoked fear among the party base that MORENA is being overrun by bellwether opportunists. But political intrigue has been surprisingly mild. Meanwhile, although data is scant, Sheinbaum’s bases of support appear to be similar to AMLO’s. According to the Mitofsky/El Economista poll, which breaks down support by occupational category, Sheinbaum is most popular among housewives, at 81 per cent, followed by informal sector workers, retirees and peasants – all exceeding the national average of 72 per cent. In sharp contrast, her support is weakest among businesspeople (55 per cent) and professionals (56 per cent) – a 26-point gap between the top and bottom of the income scale. This stratification intersects with educational attainment: 75 per cent with lower educational levels support Sheinbaum, compared to 69 per cent of graduates. But her support remains relatively solid across demographic groups. Notwithstanding fears that she lacked the magnetism of her predecessor, Sheinbaum has shown she can not only retain but build on MORENA’s following. Her more technocratic style has proven to have its own draw among credentialled sectors that had peeled away in the second half of AMLO’s term.
Continuity on core planks of AMLO’s programme – welfare expansion, anti-corruption, nationalist economics – has been combined with new emphases that reflect Sheinbaum’s different background. The elevation of women’s issues to ministry-level importance, for example, or the lowering of the pension age for women in recognition of gendered labour disparities, have established Sheinbaum as a leader in her own right. The more urgent task, however, has been advancing the institutional framework necessary for the Fourth Transformation. Most dramatically, Sheinbaum has overseen the implementation of a substantial judicial reform, which has transformed how judges are selected at every level, from local tribunals to the Supreme Court.
Public trust in the courts, known for their entrenched nepotistic networks, is low. In late 2022, revelations of secret meetings between former Supreme Court Chief Justice Norma Piña and opposition party leaders in late 2022 suggested inappropriate political coordination. The Supreme Court has also struck down key legislation, such as on energy sovereignty, on superficial proceduralist grounds. When AMLO announced his ‘Plan C’ – seeking a two-thirds congressional majority in the 2024 elections to pass eighteen constitutional reforms – he explicitly tied democratic participation to institutional change. MORENA’s subsequent landslide, securing not only the presidency but the required supermajority in Congress and local legislatures, provided what supporters view as a clear mandate for systemic reform.
The essence of the reforms is simple. All judicial positions are now subject to popular election. While judicial elections exist in various forms globally, notably in the US, where judges campaign openly on party lines for elected posts in some states, and about half of states elect their supreme courts, the scope of Mexico’s approach is unprecedented, opening every judicial post to election, including seats on the Supreme Court. Criticism has centred on several key concerns. The abysmal 13 per cent turnout in the first judicial elections, held in June, raises serious questions about democratic legitimacy, a problem MORENA supporters claim reflects the lack of promotion of the new election by the National Electoral Institute (which also places strict restrictions on office holders, including the President, from promoting the vote). Continued low turnouts would certainly delegitimize the reform but it should be noted that low judicial election participation rates are an issue in established democracies. Fears about drug cartel influence in judicial selection – while serious given Mexico’s security challenges – apply equally to existing local elections, as do claims that voters lack sufficient expertise to evaluate candidates.
The major objection to the judicial elections emphasizes the risk of ‘political capture’. The Financial Times observed that ‘Mexico’s new supreme court is set to solely contain judges nominated by the ruling coalition’, while the Economist warned that old hands are being replaced by ‘novices and partisans’. While it is safe to assume that the majority of elected judges have some ideological affinity with the government – although not necessarily any organic partisan connection – this is not a function of the design of the reform, nor necessarily a sign of ‘political capture’: after all, Sheinbaum’s sky-high approval numbers make it unremarkable that left-leaning judges would be popular too. As for the charge that Sheinbaum’s coalition monopolized nomination: the candidate selection procedures were routinely boycotted by the opposition, cynically removing themselves from the process so as to later claim they were excluded. The reform stipulates that candidates are randomly drawn from separate slates produced by the executive, legislative and judicial branches of government. But the judiciary refused to produce a slate of potential candidates in protest; their power to shortlist was then transferred to the Senate, where the ruling coalition holds a supermajority.
More revealing is the opposition’s failure to articulate a coherent alternative vision. Having lost catastrophically in 2018 and 2024 – to the point where former rivals PRI and PAN now campaign in coalition – the traditional parties found themselves defending separation of powers in abstraction while being unable to explain how the previous system of presidential nomination and congressional ratification provided genuine independence. Their attempts to equate majoritarian rule with authoritarianism thus rang hollow. Would they be decrying the supposed end of separation of powers if they thought their favoured judges had a chance of winning?
The overhaul is less transgressive of established norms than it might appear to international observers: in contrast to the quasi-religious reverence surrounding the Supreme Court in the US, Mexico’s highest court lacks deep historical roots, having been reconstituted in the 1990s under President Ernesto Zedillo. Nonetheless, the reforms amount to a profound reimagining of democracy and institutional power. The newly elected Supreme Court presents intriguing possibilities for genuine judicial independence. Its president, Hugo Aguilar Ortiz, an indigenous lawyer from the autonomous rural left with a history of representing marginalized communities, may actually stand to the left of MORENA on certain issues. His recent hiring of the lawyer representing the Ayotzinapa students – an infamous case concerning the 2014 disappearance of forty-three students that ended in conflict with AMLO’s government – signals potential independence from executive influence. The staggered terms of 8 to 15 years, determined by vote share, create a buffer against rapid political shifts and prevent wholesale court replacement with each electoral cycle. Underlying these institutional battles is a fundamental question: who determines the boundaries of democratic participation in an era of growing inequality and upper-class institutional capture. The Economist laments the ceding of the bench to ‘partisans’, but the previous Supreme Court’s protection of wealthy tax evaders such as the media magnate Ricardo Salinas Pliego shows that formally independent institutions helmed by supposedly impartial experts can in fact serve narrow elite interests.
Alongside reform of the judiciary, Sheinbaum has continued the welfarist orientation of her predecessor, with universal primary school scholarships due to be introduced next year, and pensions continuing to rise with inflation. The government has committed to the construction of 1.1 million homes over six years, many built through the Institute of the National Housing Fund for Workers, previously primarily a mortgage lender. Homes cost between $35,000-$60,000, with zero-interest loans available to workers earning up to twice the minimum wage, and priority access given to underserved populations. The programme is predicted to generate approximately 600,000 construction jobs annually.
One peculiarity of this revamped public provision is that it is happening without significant economic growth and without being fuelled by debt. Instead, it is reliant on budget restructuring and increased tax collection. This might place the project on politically firmer ground than first wave Pink Tide counterparts which relied on the commodity boom and were left exposed when it subsided. But it does add pressure to find growth opportunities. Here the need for a balance between sovereignty and global integration has become especially clear, sharpened by Trump’s threats of tariffs and wrangling about the renationalization of the electricity sector breaching trade rules under the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement. To her credit, Sheinbaum has not responded to Trump’s antics by defending the global neoliberal order as did many leaders across the world. Instead, she has advanced a reformulation of the relationship between state and market.
Plan México, unveiled in January, represents a selective revival of import substitution industrialization adapted to the contemporary era of globalized supply chains and trade. Encompassing $277 billion worth of investment, distributed across 2,000 projects spanning economic, social and industrial objectives, the initiative is one of Mexico’s most ambitious development strategies in recent decades. The plan pursues import replacement and export expansion simultaneously, leveraging nearshoring trends and US-China tensions rather than rejecting world markets entirely. In contrast to Trump’s haphazard tariff bluffs, Sheinbaum’s administration is reinstituting some strategic tariffs, particularly on Asian imports, accompanied by some industrial policy. It aims to ensure that 50 per cent of domestic supply and consumption in selected industries such as textiles will be ‘Made in Mexico’.
Strategic sectors receive particular emphasis, including semiconductors, aerospace, pharmaceuticals, medical devices and electric vehicles. The plan mandates that 54 per cent of electricity generation remain under public control while accelerating renewable energy permits. (Sheinbaum, a former climate scientist, has maintained fossil fuel investment, in the paradoxical hope that its revenues will help pay for the energy transition.) Energy infrastructure expansion includes 145 projects by the Federal Electricity Commission, aiming to increase generation capacity. Infrastructure investment is a crucial component, with 3,000 kilometres of new railroad planned, including passenger lines connecting Mexico City to Querétaro and Pachuca, and funds to repair 4,000 kilometres of federal highways. Sheinbaum’s plan also includes water infrastructure investment, from modernizing irrigation systems to river cleanup projects.
Plan México is not just about public investment, however. Influenced by Mariana Mazzucato’s ‘entrepreneurial state’ framework, positioning government as market creator rather than passive regulator, the idea is that the state will actively shape Mexico’s economic direction through mission-oriented targets while deploying ‘patient capital’ in strategic sectors. Rather than merely correcting market failures, the aim is for the Mexican state to establish new markets through public procurement guarantees and infrastructure investments that will ‘crowd in’ private capital.
For the time being, Sheinbaum has the support to pursue these goals: the right-wing opposition remains relatively weak. It is radicalizing, however. Having spent the last presidential election pretending to support AMLO’s welfare agenda (‘the programmes stay, MORENA goes’ was one of their slogans), two massive electoral defeats have left the right scrambling for a new strategy. In its recent makeover, the centre-right PAN has gravitated to the media tycoon Salinas Pliego, who seems to spend most of his day on X reposting reactionary content. Fresh from a Supreme Court ruling that forces him to pay decades of evaded taxes, he is poised to enter the political fray. PAN for its part dusted off an old slogan at its rebrand in October: ‘Patria, Familia y Libertad’. Already high, the stakes of Sheinbaum’s success are growing.
Read on: Tony Wood, ‘Mexico in Flux’, NLR 147.