With the Morena party capture and dismantling of Mexico’s institutional structure, it is often declared that the country has reverted to the one-party system that dominated its politics for most of the 20th century. Yet, this interpretation is both a misreading of history and an inaccurate analogy.
While AMLO’s legacy of centralized power and ambitious social spending provides Sheinbaum with a strong political foundation, her maneuverability is limited by fiscal constraints and a need to foster economic growth.
Sheinbaum can either lead Mexico on the road to autocracy, or she can dial back her predecessor’s agenda, employing restraint in the exercise of power and allowing for the gradual restoration of checks and balances to ensure the prevalence of the rule of law.
The democratic left’s approach is shaped by a generational shift within the broader leftist movements, whose young progressives center democracy, social justice, and human rights over traditional left-wing solidarity.
MORENA has developed fractures that may portend a coming schism. Indeed, the chances of a major rupture in the party during a Sheinbaum administration appear significant.
Should Noboa be successful, we are likely to see more such leaderships emerge in the region, and a public willing to sacrifice some liberties in favor of a sense of increased security.
Mexico’s foreign policy’s recurrent ignominies and blunders are not the result of an incompetent strategy or a mistake, but rather a series of tantrums lacking any direction or purpose.
This power grab will likely gut the Mexican research and development capacity it seeks to protect—politicizing research doesn’t exactly have a stellar track record of success, especially when paired with cuts to already underfunded research budgets.
President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) has opened yet another battlefront in Mexico’s belligerent political context. In violation of the constitution, the national education law, and the most basic sense of decency and morality, but with the usual levels of opacity and cynicism, AMLO’s government has drafted and published new textbooks for public schools nationwide through the Ministry of Education.
The causes and explanations of how Mexico has regressed to a far more dysfunctional country lie in the somewhat hidden, not-so-thrilling everyday representations of weakness and impotence—the day-to-day stories of stranded and neglected citizens trying to survive government corruption and incompetence. The challenge of being treated as citizens, not thanks to but despite the government, reveals Mexico’s dysfunction
