Ricardo Pascoe Pierce
When Claudia Sheinbaum reached her third month in office, Andrés Manuel López Obrador published a document threatening her government with an armed insurrection, led by him, if the United States intervened in Mexico or if the presidency strayed from the policy of “hugs, not bullets.” The only way out that López Obrador offered Sheinbaum was to follow the political and ideological guidelines of his government. On December 30, 2024, the newspaper El Universal headlined its edition with a statement from a document distributed to Morena senators by López Obrador the day before: “Morena sees armed uprisings if the US intervenes.”
Looking back almost a year later, what is relevant about the document is López Obrador’s arrogance in issuing threats and providing precise instructions to Sheinbaum via Morena senators, led by the sacked Adán Augusto López Hernández. The threat was clear: “If you don’t follow my policies, the people will turn away from you, Claudia.” This tone is radically different from what Sheinbaum recounts in her recent book, where he supposedly told her, “You will be very loved, trust the people, don’t distance yourself from them, and when you have doubts, apply the principles.” López Obrador didn’t need to add “my principles.”
Historical comparisons are sometimes odious, but they always teach us something. Lázaro Cárdenas assumed the presidency of Mexico on December 1, 1934. Plutarco Elías Calles filled Cárdenas’ cabinet with his followers, including his son. Seventeen months later, on April 9, 1936, Calles and his political allies published a manifesto threatening the Cárdenas government. The next day, Cárdenas ordered the arrest of Calles and his main supporters. That same day, Calles was put on a plane and sent into exile in the United States.
Three months into her term, Sheinbaum learned of the document written by López Obrador threatening her with an armed insurrection if she did not behave correctly and as they had agreed. Cárdenas exiled Calles 17 months into his administration. Sheinbaum has been in power for 14 months, and all similarities and differences with the political dilemma faced by Cárdenas are relevant. Cárdenas expelled Calles in one day. Sheinbaum reacts with a “cool head” and waits. Until when? Because the time will come when it will be too late.
If we mechanically apply the model of governance imposed by Cárdenas on Calles, Sheinbaum has barely three months left to shake off López Obrador’s tutelage. Because after that period, the movements and flirtations to define the candidates for Congress in 2027 will begin. Between the definition of electoral reform and the World Cup, Morenismo will finalize its list of candidates, which means determining who will control the next Congress: the president or the former president. And from there to the presidential candidacy in 2030. The stakes are high.
Perhaps this similarity makes her uncomfortable, which is why Sheinbaum published her strange book: she seeks to banish or ward off ghosts from those distant times. I heard voices that, upon learning of the document López Obrador wrote, claimed that Sheinbaum should have sent him into exile in Cuba immediately. But repetitions in history are always imperfect. They almost always oscillate between tragedy and comedy.
During the 14 months of the presidential administration, the political, economic, social, and international scenarios have become increasingly complex at a dizzying pace. Sheinbaum’s political control over the country is seriously deteriorating. Popularity polls are, frankly, her only firm support, and they are as volatile as the economy: one day she advances, the next she retreats. Nothing is certain, and nothing is forever.
The stagnation of the economy is so undeniable that even the Secretary of Finance had to acknowledge it. He justified it on external grounds, given the effect of U.S. tariffs. Washington’s presence in economic and political affairs has indeed been more pronounced than at most other times in our history. It has always been present and has put pressure on governments, seeking to strengthen its interests. We are currently experiencing a period of US exceptionalism in relation to Mexico and Latin America. This is expressed as military interventionism and low- to medium-intensity politics, to date.
But the Secretary of Finance forgets the internal factor: the anti-business environment of the 4T government. Plan Mexico will never take off because it is a propaganda label, but it is not a reality born of the private sector’s conviction. The Morenistas themselves are determined to create the conditions for disbelief. They made a Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation full of party militants, and did the same with the Federal Electoral Tribunal, which Morena totally colonizes. They amended the Amparo Law with the sole intention of targeting a Mexican businessman despised by the government, and the stick bears his name: Ricardo Salinas Pliego. These attitudes hinder the arrival of new foreign direct investment.
CEOs of major U.S. companies with interests in Mexico are advising Trump to negotiate the new USMCA relentlessly to corner our country, mainly because they do not trust the Mexican government and its politicized use of justice. Mexico has lost the battle for international reliability. Social conflicts within the country are escalating, fueled by poor economic management and widespread corruption within the Morenista state apparatus. Criminal violence is attacking economic sectors such as energy in all its ramifications, farmers, transporters, educational and financial centers, and small, medium, and large merchants alike. Huachicol is the public face of Morena’s conception of public-private partnerships in Mexico, including corruption that is accepted and tolerated.
But organized crime is also expanding into the trafficking of people, girls, boys, and women, in addition to increasing drug trafficking, especially synthetic drugs, and control over large swaths of the entertainment industry. The strikes by farmers, ranchers, transporters, truck drivers, gas workers, teachers, and public transport workers are the result of the government’s lack of action against crime, as well as the statist economic model of guaranteed prices that has turned entire areas of the country into veritable powder kegs. Universities and young people, students and non-students alike, are expressing their frustration at the growing lack of opportunities for work, study, and healthy entertainment. Urban youth violence is growing out of control. Phenomena such as the strikes at the UNAM and other educational institutions describe a dry prairie about to catch fire. They do not see a Mexican future for themselves.
And all this is happening in a country where formal, institutional, and political control is held by a single party that does not want to negotiate with any sector that does not bow down to its power and imposition. Morena governs by decree, not by negotiation or concession, unlike Cárdenas. It controls all the institutions at the top, but it controls almost nothing at the bottom of the social pyramid. There, everything is out of control, marked by chaos and violence. The argument for the presidential investiture is as ridiculous as Marie Antoinette’s pretension of offering sweets to an enraged people.
The Morena model of governance is unable to solve the country’s problems as they multiply rapidly. States such as Veracruz, Puebla, Guerrero, Michoacán, Zacatecas, and the State of Mexico, among others, combine issues of natural disasters with crime acting with impunity, widespread water crises, social unrest among producers, and social unrest in communities with no present and no future, no health care, and no education. While there are signs of social unrest (revolution?) throughout the country, Morena’s political leadership is fighting to defend its networks of interests, which are linked to every imaginable form of corruption. And Washington insists on being a player that demands its (preponderant?) share in decision-making.
However, the central battle is between López Obrador’s demand for loyalty from Sheinbaum and Sheinbaum’s desire to be loyal to the movement, while acknowledging the impossibility of being loyal to López Obrador and simultaneously solving the country’s problems. She sees the country slipping through her fingers, flowing uncontrollably. The economy depends on the relationship with North America, while the movement’s ideology rests on the Cuban revolutionary myth and support for Maduro in Venezuela.
The presidential popularity index is useless in the face of a crisis in a country with deep rumblings of dissatisfaction. Sheinbaum does not have the same level of political control that the former president had, nor the same social consensus. Sheinbaum has had to go out and get her shoes dirty in the midst of a climate crisis, when López Obrador never had to. Going to flood-affected communities, as Sheinbaum did, does not demonstrate her greater empathy for the people but rather reveals her political weakness. Not doing so would have brought her strong, widespread repudiation. The “love” the people have for her is as fragile as that.
The threat of December 29, 2024, remains. López Obrador is willing to go as far as armed insurrection to maintain political control in Mexico. Not even Calles was willing to go that far. Today, something urgent is happening. López Obrador does not want to relinquish power, and Sheinbaum is unsure how to assume the presidency definitively. After exhausting all political and ideological considerations, the essential question that remains is: how and where is Mexico headed in the future? Is it a member of the South-South bloc, as some in Morena claim, with all that it implies, or is it part of the North American bloc, with all that it means? The answer will define who rules Mexico: López Obrador or Sheinbaum. Or neither.
@rpascoep
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