Mexico’s first female president, Claudia Sheinbaum, presented an account of her first hundred days in office at a huge rally in Mexico City on 12 January 2025. She promised to continue AMLO’s ‘Fourth Transformation’ and placed social reforms at the top of her agenda. The imminent inauguration of Donald Trump cast a shadow, but Sheinbaum promised ‘cooperation, but never subordination’.
Translated for LAB by Mike Gatehouse
Doctor Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo, the first female president of Mexico, has very little room for manoeuvre if the is to set her own seal on her presidency, which began on 1 October 2024, since she is committed to continuing the project begun by her predecessor, Andrés Manuel López Obrador. AMLO was the founder of the National Regeneration Party (Morena) and the father of what he himself called the ‘Fourth Transformation’ of public life in the country.
Report of the first 100 days of government, Zócalo of Ciudad de México, 12 January 2025. Video: Gobierno de México. The speech begins approximately at 1:08:00
On Sunday 12 January in the main square of the capital, in front of an audience of 350,000 people, Sheinbaum delivered a report on her first 100 days in government – a government which, she said, is focused on consolidating the second stage of the Fourth Transformation ‘firmly rooted and looking forwards because the foundations of what we need to do have been soundly laid by the best of presidents, Andrés Manuel López Obrador.’
We will not go back to a neoliberal regime, said Sheinbaum. We are going to continue on the path of ‘Mexican humanism’.
In these first months of our government social programmes have remained at the centre of the agenda, and they guarantee scholarships for students in public schools, pensions for older adults, and we have added a pension for women over 60 since historically they have been the providers of care for which they have never been paid at all.
Continuing the course mapped by her predecessor, Sheinbaum defended López Obrador’s constitutional reforms, among them the controversial reform of the justice system in which judges, prosecutors and magistrates of the National Supreme Court will be elected by popular vote on 1 June this year, a measure which could politicize the justice system.
In her first hundred days she also progressed the reforms begun in the previous presidency with the winding up seven independent agencies, among them the National Institute of Transparency, Freedom of Information and Data Protection. Although its functions were transferred to other agencies, experts believe that this change could affect the accountability of public servants.
On the security front, Sheinbaum hailed progress in reducing the murder rate by 16 per cent and stressed that the strategy will remain one of dealing with the causes of violence, strengthening social programmes and ensuring better coordination among the forces of public order, improving intelligence and arresting the leading drug-traffickers.
Some analysts have noticed signs of the present administration distancing itself from the ‘hugs not bullets’ line pursued by López Obrador. Certainly in the first months of this government there have been direct strikes against organized crime, and seizures of weapons, cocaine and fentanyl. This appears to be a move by Sheinbaum to establish her authority, especially with Donald Trump due to become US President on 20 January.
Mexico is a free and independent country. We will co-ordinate and collaborate with others, but we will never subordinate ourselves
With Trump threatening the massive deportation of migrants and sanctions against any government failing to take drastic action against organized crime, Sheinbaum gave a clear message: ‘Mexico is a free and independent country. We will co-ordinate and collaborate with others, but we will never subordinate ourselves.’