Mexico's President Claudia Sheinbaum gives the annual shout of independence as part of Mexico's Independence Day celebration at Zocalo in Mexico City on Sept. 15.Hector Vivas/Getty Images
Please log in to bookmark this story.Log InCreate Free AccountPresident Claudia Sheinbaum stepped onto the balcony of the National Palace earlier this month to deliver her first “grito,” the annual re-enactment of Mexico’s cry for independence from Spanish rule.
She shouted the traditional “¡Viva México!” to jubilant Mexicans packed into the Zócalo, the central square in Mexico City, along with a list of other “vivas” – Spanish for “long live” – reflecting the priorities of her administration and the current political moment. “Long live the Indigenous women!” “Long live our brother and sister migrants!” and “Long live the free, independent and sovereign Mexico!”
But the President’s first grito drew attention for what it was lacking: the overt politicking of her predecessor and mentor, former president Andrés Manuel López Obrador. The man commonly known as AMLO delivered his final grito the year before with a lusty “Long live the fourth transformation!” – the political movement he brought to power in 2018.
Ms. Sheinbaum marks one year in office Wednesday. She made history as Mexico’s first female president, but arrived in office an unknown quantity and seemingly stuck in the shadow of her popular predecessor. She promised to “build a second story” on her mentor’s “fourth transformation” in her successful 2024 campaign, when she ran on his legacy and largely repeated his talking points.
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Fireworks are set off during the country's Independence Day celebration in Mexico City.Hector Vivas/Getty Images
But the President has put her own stamp on the presidency by practising a quieter style of politics. An environmental scientist by training, she has projected an aura of competence, displayed a cool demeanour and deployed a more technocratic discourse – a contrast to AMLO’s inflammatory language, improvisation and constant provocations.
Her approval rating sits at 73 per cent, according to the newspaper El Financiero, as middle-class Mexicans unsettled by Mr. López Obrador’s class politics and populist policies warmed to Ms. Sheinbaum’s more sober and serious style.
“She’s more presidential than AMLO in a traditional way,” said Luis Antonio Espino, a Mexican political communications consultant based in Toronto.
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He pointed to Ms. Sheinbaum’s no-nonsense image for returning some of the sheen to the presidency: tailored attire adorned with Indigenous embroidery and a neat ponytail – compared with Mr. López Obrador’s simple style and rumpled suits.
Ms. Sheinbaum has continued her predecessor’s morning news conference, allowing her to set the news cycle and control the public agenda. She badmouths the opposition but refrains from Mr. López Obrador’s excesses, such as doxxing a reporter and exposing critics’ private tax information.
“She’s not aggressive in her demeanour,” Mr. Espino said. “She doesn’t insult the opposition or the press like AMLO did.”
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Ms. Sheinbaum has refrained from continuing former president Andrés Manuel López Obrador's excesses, such as doxxing a reporter and exposing critics’ private tax information.YURI CORTEZ/AFP/Getty Images
She has presided over democratic erosion, according to critics, as she oversaw the dismantling of autonomous institutions such as the country’s version of Access to Information and the courts – a process started under Mr. López Obrador.
Hundreds of new judges were sworn in Sept. 1 after being elected in a vote with barely 13-per-cent participation. All nine Supreme Court justices are considered aligned with the ruling Morena party.
Ms. Sheinbaum recently proposed an electoral reform to overhaul the autonomous electoral institute, which Mr. López Obrador alleges cheated him out of the 2006 election – a topic the current President continues relitigating.
“The electoral reform could be the final nail in the coffin,” said Diego Petersen Farah, a columnist with the newspaper El Informador in Guadalajara. “It’s a return to a controlled democracy,” he added, referring to the days of one-party rule under the Institutional Revolutionary Party.
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Much of Ms. Sheinbaum’s success is rooted in the suite of cash-transfer programs for seniors, students and single mothers introduced by Mr. López Obrador, according to analysts. She has made political hay out of those programs and hikes in the minimum wage, boasting in her state-of-the-nation address that inequality had dropped so dramatically that Mexico now trails only Canada as “the country with the lowest inequality in the Americas.”
Fact checkers disputed that claim, saying Mexico ranks 14th in the region. But state statistics service INEGI showed poverty rates fell nearly 18 per cent between 2022 and 2024.
Critics question the methodology and counter that the programs are unsustainable. “The government has been very effective in telling Mexicans, ‘We’re giving you pensions and support,’” said Carlos Ramírez, head of consultancy Integralia. “But it doesn’t tell them, ‘We’re reducing spending on health, education, infrastructure and security.’”
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Then-interior minister Adán Augusto López with Ms. Sheinbaum after the announcement of the results of an internal national polling which declared her as the presidential candidate in 2023.RAQUEL CUNHA/Reuters
Ms. Sheinbaum has developed an unlikely rapport with U.S. President Donald Trump, earning early international acclaim as a Trump whisperer. But Mexico has placated Mr. Trump by stopping thousands of migrants from trelling through the country toward the U.S. border, sending 54 drug cartel bosses to the U.S. and decommissioning fentanyl labs.
Mr. Trump continues imposing hey demands on Mexico, however. “Mexico has run out of painless concessions to Trump,” said Federico Estévez, a political-science professor at the Autonomous Technological Institute of Mexico. “When do you send politicians? When do you send big businessmen to the U.S.?”
Ms. Sheinbaum has denied being under any pressure to send politicians with alleged ties to drug cartels to the U.S. But accusations against a party rival, Senate leader Adán Augusto López, of handing over security in southern Tabasco state to a commander linked to the violent Jalisco New Generation Cartel, continue to escalate. Mr. López denies any wrongdoing.
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Analysts say the accusations against Mr. López, along with scandals involving rivals such as AMLO’s son Andrés Manuel López Beltrán, who was caught vacationing at a $550-per-night hotel in Japan, could work in Ms. Sheinbaum’s four as she attempts to exert control over the ruling coalition, which is stuffed with AMLO loyalists.
“She doesn’t he control over a good part of her cabinet and many of the political decisions,” said Solange Márquez, a political-science professor at the University of Toronto.
“How much is the President trying to break that bond” and “become independent from hing López Obrador and his people behind her?”