On October 1st, Mexico’s presidential sash was passed onto Claudia Sheinbaum, the country’s first ever female president. After receiving the sash she declared “It is time for women. Women have arrived to shape the destiny of our beautiful nation.” She has also laid out ambitious plans to “consolidate the health service into the highest quality free public healthcare system” and add 300,000 spots in higher education by building new public high schools and universities. However, the challenges President Sheinbaum is bound to face during her presidency are immense. Mexico is immersed in a longstanding drug war against dangerous cartels which has been a predominant public safety concern since the 1980s , and a 36 per cent poverty rate in 2022. This leaves the question, what will Claudia Sheinbaum’s impact be?
Who is Claudia Sheinbaum?
Claudia Sheinbaum started her career not as a politician, but a scientist. She has a PhD in energy engineering and was part of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change team that shared a Nobel Peace Prize with former U.S. Vice President Al Gore in 2007. Later, she joined future Mexican President López Obrador as his environmental minister when he was elected as mayor of Mexico City, then continued to work alongside him during his presidency. While working with Obrador, she gained a reputation as his sharp, analytical political protege. Her environmental stance has wavered this way and that way, as she supported the opening of an oil refinery under Obrador, but her current platform calls for electric transit and renewable energy alternatives. Her platform also addresses key public safety goals with plans to enhance women’s rights and suppress Mexico’s high crime rates led by cartel activity.
Women’s Rights in Mexico
Mexico has a long history of women’s rights movements. Pivotal feminist movements like Mujeres en Accion Solidaria (Women in Solidarity Action) and the subsequent Coalición de Mujeres Feministas (Coalition of Feminist Women) developed in the 1960s, coinciding with the proliferation of independent labour unions and the boom of the agrarian land movement. Rebellious female students advocated against violence against women, and fought for abortion rights and sexual liberation. As the state exerted more control over women’s bodies through abortion legislation, the feminist movement focused its discourse on reproductive rights, as well as the unequal pay in domestic labour.
During the Zapatista uprising, indigenous women’s voices came to the forefront. Nowadays, the feminist movement is characterized by protesting continued violence against women, including homicide, femicide and sexual abuse perpetrated by both civilians and police.
Claudia Sheinbaum has made discrimination against women a priority on her long list of issues to address. Within her first week as president, she has proposed a constitutional guarantee of equal pay regardless of gender, promises of protection against violence, and gender parity in government positions. While not yet realised, Sheinbaum’s proposed initiatives bode well for the female population of Mexico.
Wars Against Drug Cartels
Drug crime is at the forefront of the challenges facing Mexico, threatening public safety and hindering economic development. In 2018 alone, Mexico suffered 33,341 homicides; a rate of 27.3 per 100,000, largely as a result of cartel access to paramilitary groups. These cartels control the drug trade and commit other crimes which endanger Mexico’s development and safety, including extortion, kidnapping, disappearances, homicide and petroleum theft. Past governments have tried to put an end to this through military force and attempts at fragmenting organised crime groups, though the persistent organised crime demonstrates that they have had little success in their operations.
Sheinbaum’s plan of action includes intelligence-gathering, troop deployment, improved federal-state coordination and providing opportunities to dissuade impoverished young people from joining organised crime. This system aims to directly act against cartels with government force, as well as prevent them from recruiting new members and regenerating after government strikes. This demonstrates how Sheinbaum’s plans have evolved past the scope of former leaders, as Sheinbaum complements her military strikes on the cartels with social development strategies that will keep them from regenerating, and creating an overall more developed society that can rely on its government for help and opportunities. As for whether or not it will be effective, only time will tell.
Impact
Since Sheinbaum is just a few weeks into her presidency, it is too soon to analyse the impacts of her policies or the overall benefit of her presidency. However, the ideas she has proposed seem to predict a net benefit for the future of Mexico. Her role as a prominent climate scientist can help Mexico combat global warming on the world stage, her prioritisation of women’s rights can lower femicide rates and inequality, and her strategy against drug cartels can give many young Mexicans a future beyond cartels by promising safety and employment. As long as Sheinbaum realises the goals she has set out in her platform, Mexico can expect strong social and economic development in the near future.
Edited by Andrea Pupovac
The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author and they do not reflect the position of the McGill Journal of Political Science or the Political Science Students’ Association.
Featured image by EneasMx
