This Thursday, January 9, marks 100 days since Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo was sworn in as Mexico’s first female president. She reaches the milestone with a very high approval rating: 78% according to an El Financiero newspaper poll conducted in December, 77% according to a poll conducted for El Universal this month. Banner in Mexico City’s Miguel Hidalgo borough inviting the public to the capital’s Zócalo main square this Sunday, where President Sheinbaum will give a report on her first 100 days in Mexico’s highest political office. (Galo Cañas Rodríguez/Cuartoscuro) Those figures are well above the almost 60% of the vote Sheinbaum attracted in last year’s presidential election. So, why is she such a popular leader? What has she achieved in her first 100 days in office? What challenges has she faced since assuming Mexico’s top political job on Oct. 1, 2024? How has she emulated, and differentiated herself from, former president Andrés Manuel López Obrador? Let’s take a look at the first three months and nine days of the Sheinbaum era in Mexican politics. (The president will offer her own assessment of her first 100 days in office in an address in Mexico City’s central square, the Zócalo, this Sunday.) Popular welfare programs continue — and new ones are added There is no doubt that Sheinbaum’s popularity, and that of her predecessor, is linked to the support the federal government has provided to Mexico’s most disadvantaged citizens over the past six years. Mexico’s latest social welfare program, the Women’s Well-Being pension — which gives a pension to women at age 60, whether or not they worked outside the home — rolled out this month, an indication that Sheinbaum is continuing the antipoverty strategies of her predecessor. (Crisanta Espinosa Aguilar/Cuartoscuro) AMLO’s administration created two new employment programs, the Youths Building the Future apprenticeship scheme and the Sowing Life reforestation program, and increased pension payments for senior citizens, among many other welfare initiatives. The current federal government has maintained all of the existing welfare programs and approved two new ones: a scholarship scheme for public school students and a pension program for women aged 60–64 (old-age pensions start at 65). The payment for women in their early 60s — those aged 63 and 64 are eligible this year — is in keeping with Sheinbaum’s pledge to prioritize the well-being of all Mexican women during her six-year term in government. ‘It’s time for women’ Sheinbaum’s focus on women’s well-being and rights is another factor that has contributed to her high levels of popularity during her first 100 days as president. “It’s time for women” is a frequent refrain of the 62-year-old former Mexico City mayor. In November, Sheinbaum signed into law a constitutional amendment that enshrines a range of rights for Mexican women. Among its objectives are to guarantee women’s right to live a life free of violence and to eradicate the gender pay gap. “Women are now in the constitution, our rights are guaranteed,” Sheinbaum said on Nov. 15. In addition, Mexico now has a Ministry of Women for the first time and a women’s minister, Citlalli Hernández. Sheinbaum is well aware that there is still a lot of work to be done to improve the lives of women in Mexico, where machismo and violence against women are prevalent. On International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women in late November, the president said her administration was committed to “eradicating” violence against women. The emblem Sheinbaum chose to represent her presidency is that of a young Mexican Indigenous woman — a way of emphasizing her administration’s plan to prioritize the well-being and advancement of girls and women in Mexico. (Moisés Pablo Nava/Cuartoscuro) Sheinbaum promotes — and defends — constitutional reforms In addition to the women’s rights reform mentioned above, various reform proposals submitted to Congress by López Obrador almost a year ago were approved in Sheinbaum’s first 100 days in office, including one that eliminated seven autonomous watchdog agencies. Just before she was sworn in as president, Congress — dominated by the ruling Morena party — approved a judicial reform and a reform that put the National Guard under military control, meaning that the new president has been left to defend initiatives put forth by her predecessor and approved in the final days of his term. The judicial reform, which paved the way for Mexico’s first-ever judicial elections — to be held this year — was a particularly controversial issue during Sheinbaum’s first month in office, in part because the president declared she wouldn’t comply with a judge’s order to withdraw the publication of a decree that promulgated the reform. She has tirelessly defended the reform and late last year said that Mexico is “perhaps” the most democratic country in the world given that it will hold judicial elections in 2025. While there is significant opposition to the staging of judicial elections — and ample concern about the impact they will have on Mexico’s judiciary — polls indicate that Sheinbaum hasn’t lost much, or any, support as a result of that trepidation. Three polls commissioned by the ruling Morena party last year found that around four in five Mexicans supported the judicial reform, which Sheinbaum argues was necessary to rid the judiciary of corruption and other ills. Supporters of the nation’s recently passed judicial reform, like these UNAM students in September, see the election of the nation’s judges as improving transparency and holding the judiciary branch accountable to the people. Opponents see it as an invitation to corruption. (Rogelio Morales/Cuartoscuro.com) While some analysts see at least some of the reforms put forward by López Obrador as a hindrance for the new president, Sheinbaum — and evidently a majority of Mexican people — consider the defense of AMLO’s legacy and the continuation of the so-called “fourth transformation” he initiated a necessity for the country. Following (mostly) in the footsteps of her mentor In addition to perpetuating the majority of AMLO’s policies and programs, Sheinbaum has followed in the footsteps of her political mentor in a range of other ways. The president, who served as a minister in the 2000–05 Mexico City government led by López Obrador, holds weekday morning press conferences (mañaneras), tours the country on weekends and lives in the National Palace, all just as AMLO did during his six-year term. She does, of course, have a different political style, as demonstrated at her mañaneras. Sheinbaum is more direct and less loquacious and folksy than AMLO — more like a business executive or academic (which she was) than a garrulous, history-loving uncle (or aunt). The president has also demonstrated greater willingness than López Obrador to engage on the world stage, representing Mexico at the G20 Leaders’ Summit in Brazil in November (an event AMLO never attended.) Mexico’s President Sheinbaum, center, at the G20 Leaders’ Summit in Brazil in November, where she connected with President Gustavo Petro of Colombia, left, and other fellow Latin American progressive leaders, including Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, second from left, and Chile’s President Gabriel Boric, right. (Presidencia) In addition, Sheinbaum, a climate scientist, is more committed to advancing the energy transition in Mexico than her predecessor. Security strategy another point of difference Exactly one week after Sheinbaum was sworn in, the federal government presented a new security strategy based on four key pillars including the consolidation of the National Guard and the strengthening of intelligence gathering. Since the new government took office, homicides have declined, more than 7,000 people have been arrested for high-impact crimes, and 66 tonnes of drugs and over 3,600 firearms have been seized, according to a security update provided by Security Minister Omar García Harfuch at Sheinbaum’s press conference on Thursday morning. Still, a majority of respondents to the recent El Financiero poll were dissatisfied with the government’s efforts to combat insecurity. There has been some indication that the government is moving away from the “not bullets” component of the so-called “hugs, not bullets” security strategy pursued by the López Obrador administration, as security forces have engaged in a number of confrontations with cartel gunmen since Sheinbaum took office. While cartel infighting has sparked hundreds of headline-grabbing murders in Sinaloa since the fall, government data shows that the overall number of Mexico’s homicides has gone down since Sheinbaum took office. However, the president has stressed that her government won’t pursue the kind of militarized “war” against drug cartels that former president Felipe Calderón launched shortly after he took office in December 2006. Among the numerous security challenges the federal government faces is violence in Sinaloa, due to Sinaloa Cartel infighting that intensified after the arrest of Ismael “El Mayo” García in the United States last July. Dealing with Trump a challenge, even before he takes office Sheinbaum has received somewhat of a crash course on what to expect over the next four years with Donald Trump back in the White House. From Trump, there have been tariff threats, an expression of willingness to use the U.S. military to combat Mexican cartels, a pledge to carry out “the largest deportation operation in American history,” and even an announcement that the Gulf of Mexico will be renamed the Gulf of America. Sheinbaum hasn’t been shy in responding to the former and future U.S. president: Sheinbaum is quickly learning on the job how to handle U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s often eyebrow-raising statements about Mexico. This week, after Trump said he’d be changing the Gulf of Mexico’s name to Gulf of America, Sheinbaum responded with a history lesson — and a tongue-in-cheek proposal of her own. (Daniel Augusto/Cuartoscuro) The president’s willingness to hit back at Trump endears her to many Mexicans who have a low opinion of the former and soon-to-be U.S. president. Despite Trump’s threats to impose tariffs on Mexican exports to the United States, and disparaging remarks he has made about Mexico and Mexicans, Sheinbaum has repeatedly said she believes that Mexico will have a good relationship with the U.S. during the second Trump administration. She now has just 11 days to wait before her new president-to-president relationship with the septuagenarian leader will commence. With Mexico and the United States facing a range of shared challenges, on security, migration, economic matters, the rise of China and other issues, and with a review of the USMCA free trade pact coming up in 2026 (Trump wants to renegotiate the agreement), there is little doubt that interesting times are ahead. Buckle up for the first 100 days of Trump’s second term as president — and beyond. By Mexico News Daily chief staff writer Peter Davies ([email protected])
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