On October 1st, 2024, Claudia Sheinbaum was inaugurated as the President of Mexico, or as they say in Spanish, La Presidenta de México. She is the first woman president of Mexico and the first Jewish president of Mexico.
¡ Felicidades, Presidenta Sheinbaum !
Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (AMLO) is just about at the end of his presidential term. The inauguration of his successor, Claudia Sheinbaum, is scheduled for October 1st, 2024.
The term of a Mexican president is six years, with no re-election. However, AMLO’s term is two months shy of six years, due to a constitutional change made in 2014 which is taking effect now. This changes the inauguration (Transmisión del Poder Ejecutivo Federal) from the beginning of December to the beginning of October.
On September 29th, AMLO was in Quintana Roo state, in far eastern Mexico. The presidente was there for a ceremony marking the end of the construction of the new Maya Train in the Yucatan Peninsula. Part of the railroad began operation in December of 2023.
Here is a photo of AMLO waving to folks at the ceremony:
AMLO possesses highly-effective political skills and is an example of perseverance, having lost the presidential race twice (2006 and 2012), and then winning in 2018 with a new political party that he founded. That party is now the dominant party of Mexico. (see The Astonishing Growth and Power of Mexico’s MORENA Party).
Claudia Sheinbaum, AMLO’s protege and now successor, was elected in June. AMLO has been very active in the transition period, continuing to drive policy, including the unprecedented judicial reform which was recently passed.
What will AMLO’s role be after his term is over? Is he going to retire to his ranch in Chiapas and write books, as he said? Or is still going to be active politically behind the scenes? Mexico is about to find out.
Here is a photo of AMLO with U.S. President Joe Biden and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, taken in January of 2023:
As for AMLO’s political legacy as president of Mexico, that is liable to be a hot topic of discussion in this time of transition and beyond.
Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (AMLO) is nearing the end of his term.
The inauguration of his elected predecessor Claudia Sheinbaum is scheduled for October 1st.
By all accounts, AMLO remains quite popular.
The overwhelming support granted to his MORENA party in the June 2nd presidential and congressional elections is evidence of this.
In addition, approval polls have indicated AMLO’s continuing popularity.
The website of the Americas Society/Council of the Americas (AS/COA) has published results of polls tracking AMLO’s popularity in Mexico.
There’s talk of constructing a high-speed rail line from Austin, Texas through San Antonio, Texas to Monterrey, Mexico.
From Newsweek: The push for high-speed rail connecting Texas and Mexico took a step forward this week, as officials from both sides of the border met to discuss the project’s future. The goal is creating a rail line that connects Austin, San Antonio, and Monterrey, Mexico, which would offer an alternative to the heavily congested I-35 corridor.
This would be the proposed route:
Back to Newsweek: The Texas Passenger Rail Advisory Committee, spearheaded by Bexar County Judge Peter Sakai and Travis County Judge Andy Brown met Mexican officials on Monday [September 23rd] aboard Amtrak’s Texas Eagle, an existing daily passenger service between Austin and San Antonio...Sakai said, “We need to come up with creative solutions for passengers who are looking for alternatives to using their vehicles to navigate the congested 80-mile stretch” between San Antonio and Austin.
The Mexican officials included a state official of Nuevo Leon, the state in which Monterrey is located; and the mayor-elect of Saltillo.
Officials in Monterrey and Nuevo Leon have already shown considerable interest in the project, with Nuevo Leon Governor Samuel Garcia last year urging Texas officials to consider using federal government funds for a high-speed rail line linking Monterrey with San Antonio.
The proposal faces obstacles.
One hurdle is Union Pacific’s control of the rail line between Austin and San Antonio. The freight company has historically been reluctant to share its tracks with passenger rail without a separate freight bypass.
Union Pacific was one of the railroads involved in the Transcontinental Railroad, joined by the Golden Spike in Utah in 1869. Here’s a photo:
Moreover, funding for the project could prove difficult to secure. Texas lawmakers have shown resistance to allocating funds for high-speed rail, especially given past legislation that prevents state funds from being used for rail projects operated by private entities.
President AMLO (Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador) is nearing the end of his presidency, so summaries and analyses of his term are coming out.
Here’s one from a Mexican official, who reports that during AMLO’s presidency, over 13 million migrants crossed from Mexico into the United States over the two countries’ common border.
From Efe via Telemundo: “During the presidency of Mexican president Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, more than 13 million migrants crossed the border between Mexico and the United States, with Ciudad Juarez and El Paso (Texas) being some of the most critical points in the migratory flow, reported the Director General of the Coordinación de Oficinas de Representación [Coordination of Offices of Representation] del [of the] Instituto Nacional de Migración (INM), Héctor Martínez Castuera.“
The INM is the Mexican federal government’s immigration agency.
“During the period between December of 2018 [when AMLO became president] and September of 2024 [second to last month of his presidency] the northern border of Mexico has established itself as the nerve center for migrants coming from various countries, principally of Central America, South America and the Caribbean, who seek to arrive to the United States with the purpose of finding better opportunities.”
If you break that down by U.S. presidents, Trump was president when AMLO became president until January 20th, 2021, when Biden became president, and is still president.
So that’s AMLO-Trump for 2 years and 7 weeks; and AMLO-Biden for 3 years and 8 months.
About Ciudad Juarez:
Ciudad Juarez, which adjoins El Paso, Texas, has been one of the principal migratory thoroughfares, where thousands of persons wait in shelters, improvised camps or outdoors, to cross the Rio Bravo [Rio Grande] and request asylum in U.S. territory.
“I think that no border is prepared for 5 million persons, neither that of Mexico, nor of the United States, nor that of Colombia. These are global conditions. I understand that there are things that are being done to facilitate their not having to arrive here (at the border) to request asylum, but the world is not ready for the migrant wave”, said Guillermo Asian, spokesman of the Fideicomiso para la Competitividad y Seguridad Ciudadana (Ficosec) [Trust for Competitiveness and Citizen Security].
President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (AMLO)
lacks one more week as President of Mexico.
On October 1st, he is scheduled to be replaced
by Claudia Sheinbaum.
According to Milenio, by the time his term ends
in one week, AMLO is likely to have passed 27 reforms to the Mexican Constitution. That’s if all goes according to plan, which it probably will.
Coincidentally, there have been 27 amendments to the U.S. Constitution in the entire
history of that document, which took effect in 1789.
And yet, AMLO does not even hold the record for Mexican presidents for constitutional reforms.
From Milenio (my translation): “President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador will finish his six-year term with 27 constitutional reforms approved by the Congress of the Union (Mexican Congress), as a foundation for the ‘second story’ of the so-called Fourth Transformation.”
The “Fourth Transformation” is AMLO’s political agenda. It means the fourth transformation of Mexico after 1) Independence (1810-1821), 2) the Reform War (1858-1861) and the Mexican Revolution (1910-1917).
AMLO’s recent judicial reform is one of these reforms, which was pushed through the process rapidly. There are 26 others, including the pending National Guard jurisdiction change, likely to pass this week.
And yet, AMLO does not hold the presidential record for passing constitution reforms.
Felipe Calderon (photo at left) is in first place.
Calderon was president from
2006 to 2012.
President Calderon had 38 constitutional
reforms passed.
Enrique Peña Nieto (photo at right) is in second place.
Peña Nieto was president from 2012 to 2018.
President Peña Nieto had 28 constitutional
reforms, which is 1 more than AMLO
will have in a week, if all goes according to plan.
Comparing the U.S. and Mexican political systems, it’s easier and faster to amend the Mexican Constitution than it is the U.S. Constitution.
The MORENA party, now Mexico’s dominant party, was founded by Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (AMLO). Though AMLO stepped down as leader in 2017 to run for president, as Reuters puts it, “analysts maintain that the party has always been subordinate to the ruler.”
The current official chairman of MORENA
is Mario Delgado, but he’s been designated
as the next secretary of public education
in the about-to-take-office administration
of Claudia Sheinbaum.
On September 22nd, the MORENA party held its “congreso nacional extraordinario” and there was an election for new leadership.
The new party chairman, to take office on October 1st, is Luisa Maria Alcalde, currently Secretary of the Interior (Gobernación). She was chosen unanimously. In fact it was already known beforehand that the post was hers.
Likewise, Andres Manuel Lopez Beltran, “Andy”, son of AMLO, was named Secretary of Organization.
The violence in Mexico’s Sinaloa state continues. (See previous articles here and here ).
According to a Reuters report, “Some 53 people have been killed and 51 others are missing in Mexico’s western Sinaloa state since rival factions of the Sinaloa Cartel began clashing on Sept 9, local authorities said on Friday [September 20], with gruesome violence showing no signs of abating.”
The Sinaloa cartel is the biggest criminal organization in the hemisphere. The current conflict pits two factions against each other, the faction led by the son of “El Mayo” Zambada (recently captured in the U.S.) vs. the Chapitos, sons of “El Chapo” Guzman.
One weird result of the conflict was reported by Reuters: “Mexico’s Federal Attorney for Environmental Protection (Profepa) said it was providing resources to local authorities to feed a tigress tied to a tree. Senior Sinaloan narcos often keep tigers as pet animals. Profepa said in a statement that vets in Sinaloa had declined to assist due to security fears, and it had provided military officials with a ‘cage, a dart rifle and darts’. But the violence had prevented the military from rescuing it.”
Drug barons do like to keep exotic animals. There are now hippopotamuses in Colombia because they were introduced there by Pablo Escobar.
The PRD, Partido de la Revolución Democrática (“Party of the Democratic Revolution”), once one of Mexico’s most powerful parties, has now lost its national registry.
The decline of the PRD is part of the massive change in Mexican politics of the past decade which has seen the rise of MORENA, now the dominant party of Mexico. The PRD, on the other hand, is nearly extinct at the national level.
The PRD used to be AMLO’s party.
Here is the symbol of the PRD, the Sol Azteca, the “Aztec Sun”:
It’s an impressive-looking log that grabs your attention. But the party is finished at the national level, mainly because its chief standard-bearer, AMLO, jumped ship and started a new party. It’s likely many of the old PRD voters followed AMLO to MORENA. After all, they’re fishing in the same leftist waters and it’s unsurprising that many followers of AMLO would follow him to MORENA.
The PRD was founded in 1989 by Cuauhtemoc Cardenas, formerly of the PRI (Partido Revolucionario Institucional) which was for most of the twentieth century the state party of Mexico. Cardenas had run as an independent against the PRI in 1988 but lost in what many believed to be a stolen election.
The first members included leftists from the PRI and smaller parties including The Mexican Socialist Party, Mexican Workers’ Party, Unified Socialist Party of Mexico and the Mexican Communist Party.
One of the founding members of the party who left the PRI was none other than Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (AMLO). From 1996 to 1999, AMLO served as chairman of the party.
In 2006, AMLO was the presidential candidate of the PRD. It was a three-way race among the three biggest parties: the PRI, the PAN and the PRD. It was a close and disputed election. Calderon won with 36.69% of the vote, squeaking by AMLO with 36.09% of the vote.
Six years later, in 2012, AMLO ran again as the PRD standard-bearer, in another 3-way race. This time it was Pena Nieto of the PRI who won with 39.17% of the vote; with AMLO coming in second with 32.41% of the vote.
After the 2012 election, AMLO left the PRD and in 2014 his new MORENA party was registered.
In 2018, AMLO ran as the candidate of the MORENA party against the PAN and the PRI and won by a resounding 54.71% of the vote. As for his old PRD, it actually ran in alliance with the PAN party.
In the 2024 election on June 2nd, won by MORENA’s Claudia Sheinbaum, the PRD ran in coalition with the PAN and the PRI, but the PRD didn’t do well. It only received 2.43 percent in the elections for the Cámara de Diputados.
The PRD didn’t even reach the 3% minimum to be a nationally-registered party and receive government funds.
So on September 9th, the INE (Instituto Nacional Electoral) confirmed that the PRD has lost its registration as a national party.
In the Mexican Congress, there is only one PRD representative in the Cámara de Diputados. There is no PRD senator in the Senado because in August, the only two senators-elect from the party abandoned the PRD and switched to the MORENA party.
The address of the PRD headquarters was Benjamin Franklin No. 84, in the Escandon colonia (neighborhood) of Mexico City. Here’s a photo of the party’s headquarters, which began to be vacated on September 9th:
The PRD is still registered on the state level in 12 states and Mexico City, but it has lost its registration at the national level and has only one member in Congress.
It’s part of the recent political change in Mexico.
In the election of 2012, the three biggest parties in Mexico were the PAN, the PRI and the PRD. Now the PAN and PRI are diminished and the PRD is almost gone at the national level.
The dominant party in the country is AMLO’s MORENA. See The Astonishing Growth and Power of Mexico’s MORENA Party.
Factions of the Sinaloa drug cartel are fighting it out in the state of Sinaloa. (See
Cartel Factions Fight it Out in Sinaloa State and AMLO’s Comments in a Press Conference).
Reportedly, at least 30 have been killed since September 9th.
Elements of the military and National Guard, comprising 2,200 troops, have been sent to Sinaloa. Two of the dead were military personnel.
President AMLO said their mission is to protect the population and stop clashes between the factions. As they say, “good luck with that”.
The regional army commander on the other hand said the situation won’t calm down unless the cartel factions stop fighting each other.
So why not send in many more troops with a mission to end the fighting? Well, according to President-Elect Claudia Sheinbaum, “In the moment of confrontation, to enter with firepower would start a war…”
Excuse me, but isn’t there a war in Sinaloa already?
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