Asserting Authority

In the days before her inauguration, without any need for the demonstration of rupture with her predecessor many demanded both before and after the election, Sheinbaum set about asserting her authority. In a speech at the MORENA conference on September 22, the president-elect laid out a decalogue of behavior she expected of the party, including maintaining its dual status as party and movement, avoiding internal divisions, and steering clear of “an excess of pragmatism without principles” — coded language for the top-down imposition of candidates without popular support, an ongoing Achilles’ heel for the party in a number of states, municipalities, and congressional districts. The clear message to the incoming MORENA leadership? “You need to run a tight ship.”

A week later, she stepped it up a notch in a shot across the bow with Spain over the inauguration itself. In 2019, AMLO sent a missive to King Felipe VI inviting the monarch to a joint process of reconciliation in relation to the upcoming five-hundredth anniversary of the fall of the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan in 1521, in which Spain would recognize its responsibility for the atrocities committed. Without even deigning to respond to the letter, the monarch leaked it to the press, leading to an anti-Mexico pile-on among Spanish elites and right-wing monarchists. In response to the snub, the Sheinbaum transition team decided to invite Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez to the inauguration but not the king. Evincing a belated ability to write letters after all, the Spanish government sent a formal complaint to Mexico and, in a huff, decided not to send anyone. All this has left voices aligned with the SUMAR wing of Spain’s governing coalition wondering why a nominally progressive administration like Sánchez’s would yoke its diplomacy to a Bourbon monarch, one with a track record of disrespecting protocol on previous visits to Latin American inaugurations.

Then, in an interview with the newspaper La Jornada, Ernestina Godoy — tapped to head up the incoming president’s legal office — allowed that a Sheinbaum government may take steps against those judges who flagrantly violated the law by attempting to use a form of preliminary injunction to freeze congressional debate regarding the recent judicial reform. The reform, which provides for the election of the entire federal judiciary, including the Supreme Court, has infuriated the judiciary and led to a series of sermonizing lectures by US ambassador Ken Salazar.

This puts into perspective a seemingly offhand comment made by AMLO that, compared to Sheinbaum, he is a fresa — Mexican slang roughly equivalent to “bougie.” And it would seem to put to bed the self-interested predictions made by a number of establishment commentators to the effect that a second MORENA administration will, for whatever reason, have to move to the center.

Navigating the Initial Rapids

Immediately following the inauguration, Sheinbaum will be heading to Acapulco, in the state of Guerrero, which is facing severe flooding in the wake of Hurricane John. This is the second time in two years the area has been hit by a hurricane. In 2023, Hurricane Otis came out of nowhere to become a Category 5 storm, the strongest to ever make landfall on the nation’s Pacific coast. This double-barreled barrage serves as an involuntary backdrop to the ambitious climate agenda the president will seek to implement.

The president will also have her hands full with organized crime–related conflicts at both ends of the country. In Culiacán, Sinaloa, violence between warring factions of the Sinaloa Cartel following the mysterious arrest by US officials of former leader Israel “Mayo” Zambada has left over a hundred dead. As has become standard operating procedure, the United States generates splashy headlines with its so-called kingpin strategy while average Mexicans pay the price for its aftermath in the form of turf wars. As long as US demand for drugs remains, the kingpin will always be replaced.

Meanwhile, in the southern state of Chiapas, cartel disputes over the lucrative black-market border trade has even driven some local residents to seek refuge in neighboring Guatemala. While AMLO’s administration ultimately succeeded in modestly reducing stubborn homicide totals, the nation is far from pacified, with rates remaining frustratingly high.

Having lost its bastion in the judicial branch, expect Mexico’s right to pour even more energy into a media war against the new administration. In this it will find, as ever, a willing accomplice in the United States. One of AMLO’s last official acts as president, after exhausting attempts to come to an agreement, was to turn the highly polluting Calica limestone quarry owned by Vulcan Materials on the popular tourist coast of Quintana Roo into a National Protected Area. In response, Republican senator Katie Britt warned Mexico of “crushing consequences,” a threat amplified by friendly news outlets. More of the same will doubtless follow as the Sheinbaum administration looks to tighten up rules governing water and mining concessions to multinationals; it will be important that her government not make the rookie mistake of ceding to the bluster and baleful headlines.

Finally, Sheinbaum will face the innate challenge of being Mexico’s first woman leader in some five hundred years, counting both its time as a colony and then as an independent republic. Despite the nation’s remarkable success in achieving full gender parity in both Congress and the executive cabinet over the past six years, her arrival to the powerful office of the presidency is, symbolically, on another order of magnitude, and will likely result in both veiled and open forms of pushback. In this, Sheinbaum’s dual experience in activism and governance will serve her in good stead.

As she has often stated, she did not attain to the presidency alone, and the movement that guaranteed MORENA its second term will need to remain in constant mobilization.