Two years ago, on June 2nd, 2024, Claudia Sheinbaum was elected to be president of Mexico. She was inaugurated October 1st, 2024.
On May 31st, to celebrate the two years of her election, Presidenta Sheinbaum delivered a speech at the Monumento a la Revolución in Mexico City.
Sheinbaum spoke to a live audience of 130,000 (plus many others throughout Mexico watching live). You can read the speech in Spanish here. The pictures portray a festive occasion.
The speech is valuable because it tells us much about how she views her presidency and what is important to her.
Sheinbaum’s speech was a defense of her presidency and the Fourth Transformation movement.
The idea of the Fourth Transformation is that there were 3 previous transformations in Mexican history: 1) Independence (1810-1821), 2) The Reform Wars (1857-1861), 3) The Mexican Revolution (1910-1920). Beginning with President AMLO (2018-2024) and now with President Sheinbaum is the Fourth Transformation.
Here’s how she began the speech: “Female Mexicans and Male and Generic Mexicans, Two years ago, nearly 36 million female Mexicans and male/generic Mexicans deposited in the ballot boxes their hope, their confidence and their decision to continue advancing by the way of the Transformation begun by President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador. With this backing, I assumed the honor and the enormous responsibility of heading up the continuity of the Fourth Transformation of the Public Life. A mandate, born of the popular will, of the conviction of millions of female Mexicans and male/generic Mexicans who said with clarity that ‘we should not return to the past of privileges, corruption, decadence and the abandonment of the fatherland and of the people’. And that day an accomplishment occurred which will be left engraved forever in the memory of our nation: for the first time, a woman arrived to the presidency of the Republic. It is the victory of the women of Mexico, but, most importantly, the victory of a people who decided to continue making history. Two years after that magnificent and historic triumph of the people, I appear again to give an account, as I have done, in front of the people and in the public plaza.”
President Sheinbaum proceeded to lay out a long list of accomplishments of her 20 months as president.
She spoke of government being conducted honorably, without salary increases for high-ranking government officials, reduction of the budget and increase in tax collection without a tax increase.
She spoke of her communication with the people: “I travel in the country three times a week to give an account, to listen and to directly attend to the people.” She mentioned her 409 morning press conferences and said that the government hadn’t acquired “fancy vehicles or eccentricities for the government”.
She said that “Here there is no space for corruption, nor privileges, nor excesses that for decades offended the people of Mexico.”
Sheinbaum said of her and her government “we walk with the people, we listen to the people, we give account to the people and we govern obeying the people. We do not arrive to the government to serve ourselves, we arrive to put power to the service of the people and of the nation.”
She said that the essence of the Fourth Transformation is “to end a regime that governed for the elite, for the oligarchy, and consolidate a government of the people.”
She was very hard on pre-MORENA governments in what she calls the “neoliberal” period. According to Sheinbaum, the neoliberal governments lasted 36 years, which would be 1976-2018, the latter year being the year AMLO became president.
She specifically criticized Presidents Zedillo (1994-2000) of the PRI and Fox (2000-2006) and Calderon (2006-2012) of the PAN.
Sheinbaum slammed conservatism and quoted Carlos Monsivais, who said that “the true doctrine of conservatism is the hypocrisy“. “And, in effect“, said Sheinbaum, “they are hypocrites“.
She criticized U.S. interference during the neoliberal period. Now however, said Sheinbaum, “In Mexico the people govern.”
And now, said Sheinbaum, “in contrast with the past…the power of the state is not used against the people...”
“The model of Mexican Humanism and the Moral Economy strengthen the distribution of wealth and the development of the economy from below. We do not leave everything to the market, nor do we trust that the benefits arrive by themselves to the people. We promote a State that boosts development, guarantees social rights, promotes strategic sectors and puts the well-beging of the majorities at the center of the public decisions.”
She said that “Even with the difficult international circumstances, marked by the change in U.S. tariff policy and the war in Iran, the Mexican economy remains stable and advanced.”
She boasted of growth in foreign investment, low unemployment, job creation, lowering inflation, low interest rates, stable fuel prices, lowering grocery prices, a strong peso, decrease in the debt in relation to GDP, growth in exports and sales, and a 10.2% increase in tourism.
She spoke of various pensions that Mexicans receive, agricultural subsidies, educational scholarships, teacher raises, 29 new hospitals, free medicines and the government’s objective to construct a universal system of free health care in 2027.
President Sheinbaum said they are “recovering the energy sovereignty of the nation” by rescuing PEMEX (government oil company) and the Federal Electricity Commission which are now “true public businesses in the service of the people of Mexico“.
The government she said is working on Mexican highways and bridges and reviving passenger train service.
And there was more, a long list of accomplishments.
But despite all these acomplishments Sheinbaum warned that Mexico is under attack. By whom?
Here’s what she said: “For several month we have been the object of a media offensive and of millionaire campaigns on social media. It is no coincidence. It is no coincidence. Behind them are the conservative national and international sectors who will never accept that Mexico recover its dignity and decide to fully exercise its independence.”
So, once again, it’s the conservatives!
“We understand that today the forms of destabilization promoted by the International Right-Wing Groups have changed a little, but not in the purpose. Now they do not always impose by the force, as in the past. Today they can express themselves through digital campaigns, disinformation operations which seek to erode governments and movements. They can operate from global platforms, where the flow of information is concentrated in very few hands, with the capacity to influence through algorithms unprecedented in the history of humanity.”
How do these right-wingers operate?
“Through means of paid accounts and bots, they articulate the interests of the foreign and national conservative sectors who seek to recover lost privileges or stop the Transformation…”
She spoke about the deaths of two American agents in Mexico and that foreign agents can’t be doing unathorized work in the country.
Then she got into the Sinaloa Ten (3 of whom are already in U.S. custody): “A few days later, something even more grave occurred: an office of the U.S. Department of Justice urgently requested the detention for extradition of 10 Mexican citizens, – among them a governor, a mayor and a sitting senator – without presenting public proofs that back up this request. …And thus we must ask, the legitimate question emerges, Is it really a legitimate interest, genuinely to help Mexico? Is it really a legitimate interest to fight organized crime? Or maybe we are seeing how sectors of the American far right utilizes our country to position itself for the elections of 2026? Or are they attempting to influence the elections of 2027 in our country. These are not rhetorical questions. Mexico is nobody’s pinata !”
“Therefore, I call the people of Mexico to attention. When from abroad it is declared who is guilty and who is not, when they seek to pressure our institutions from abroad, when it is normalized the idea ‘that another country can intervene in affairs that can only correspond to Mexicans’ we are now not talking about cooperation but we are talking about interference.”
She slammed the Mexican right for “celebrating and even promoting the pressures of foreign politicians“. She’s referring to the PAN supporting the extradition of the Sinaloa indictees.
There’s more, click here for the text in Spanish.
To summarize, President Sheinbaum set forth a long list of accomplishments, warned of US intervention (including extradition requests for Mexican politicians) and warned several times of conservatives, both foreign and domestic.