It happened with Andrés Manuel López Obrador, and it happens with Claudia Sheinbaum. The opposition and critical media’s desire that the Fourth Transition government will begin to back down at some point ultimately leads to the announcement of imminent collapses that will never materialize. Every media scandal is now the beginning of the end, whether it concerns the recall of a drone, the flights of a known Morino, or the sordid practices of Adan Augusto Lopez.
It is understandable that the opposition and critics exaggerate the ruling group’s mistakes and sometimes even invent positions to add flour to their mill. The problem is that belief in the supposed collapse exempts them from working on constructing viable proposals to defend their homeland project before citizens. The opposition spends so much time and resources exposing and disseminating evidence of the fall that it has forgotten to build an alternative to the ruling group. As if it is enough to go back to the past and nothing happened with the poor majority voting on punishment in 2018, or as if the world is no longer the same as it was ten years ago.
The weakness attributed to Claudia Sheinbaum is one such invention. If the reading is that the power of the presidency is weakening and that “reality” will sooner rather than later remove them from the palace, then what is the need to start building something else. Unfortunately for them, concrete analysis provides no support for such an assumption; Rather, it proves the opposite.
What they don’t realize is that the president in her second year has more power than she did 14 months ago. It has many buttons and levers on the dashboard that are not designed or designed to suit your driving style. The Cabinet, the constitutional majority in Congress, the judiciary, the Supreme Court and now the Attorney General’s Office.
Let’s start with the government that started on October 1st of last year. It was undoubtedly a transitional team halfway between the needs of completing the final tasks for the first floor of 4T and the essential pieces for starting the second floor. Without haste, Claudia Sheinbaum did what was necessary to place the boards with which she felt most comfortable and started with the three most pressing areas: the economy, public security and health. The Secretary of the Treasury, the Head of the Financial Intelligence Unit, the Chairman of the National Banking Commission and, above all, the main second grills of work on public finance matters were replaced.
Regarding public security, the “empowerment” of Omar Garcia Harfouche is clear. Not only in the sense that it has been able to place its cadres in strategic positions, but also in the legal amendments that grant it powers and capabilities. Ultimately, power is about effectiveness. There is no doubt that López Obrador’s leadership was formidable, including the armed forces and the security services. But rivalries and lack of coordination limited that power. The Navy, Defence, Treasury, Financial Intelligence Unit, Public Security, Attorney General’s Office had their own agenda. Even when they were all disciplined before the President, the results as a whole were much more limited than what García Harfusch can do today in matters of intelligence, investigation and operations, with powers that transcend all of these areas horizontally. In this sense, Sheinbaum’s scope is greater than that of López Obrador.
The same can be said in matters of public health. The cadre change was radical, and the few who replicated it, including Zoe Robledo at IMSS, achieved it thanks to their willingness to adapt to the new presidential style.
It is noteworthy that several secretaries form a kind of wedge for López Obrador, especially Interior Minister Rosa Aisela Ramírez. Another “urban” legend. In 2018, Sheinbaum promoted her, making her his cabinet secretary for the first two years of her administration as Mexico City’s head of government. From there he left to support López Obrador’s federal government. At the end of Tabasco’s six-year term, Sheinbaum brought her back for the same assignment he had offered her six years earlier. Marcelo Ebrard or Juan Ramon de la Fuente are not there because they owe something to López Obrador as well; They will remain in their positions as long as they are effective in managing the second floor of 4T. Which Ebrard fully understood and led him to align his agenda with the president’s.
For purposes of governance, perhaps the most important thing for a president is his relationship with the legislature, and his ability to change laws. López Obrador “enjoyed” the constitutional majority for only one month, which was the last month. Sheinbaum will have had it for the first three years, at least. Now it is forgotten that many of Tabasco Citizen’s projects have been rejected in Congress or the Supreme Court, a problem that Claudia Sheinbaum has not and will not have. What happened is that the haste in preparing the draft laws, the foolishness of Morena legislators or the severity of the reaction of social actors, prompted the presidency to clarify, and in some cases to postpone. Hakim’s stance reflects the complexity of Mexican society and the times we live in, and Sheinbaum’s desire not to appear authoritarian.
They wanted to read into this some kind of disdain within Morena for the power of the executive, but that is another myth. If any governor or legislative coordinator tried to challenge his leadership in the first weeks, he would quickly realize that this was the quickest way to dig his own political grave. It is also no small feat that Sheinbaum starts with 24 Morena governors, of whom López Obrador had six at the beginning of his six-year term.
As far as Morena is concerned, López Obrador’s weight on the movement cannot be replicated. But it is enough for her to be seen during her six years as a representative and working leader. Number one After the founder’s retirement.
Sheinbaum’s power is by no means absolute. There is no presidential authority in times of globalization and the dominance of market forces. The challenges facing his government lie elsewhere, although media fever and local customs overstate the political aspect. To be sure, storms will blow, but Claudia Sheinbaum will have to weather them by taking control of a political apparatus unlike any president has seen in half a century, including López Obrador. We hope that this will be enough to address the real problem: the economic problem, but that is another story.