Navigating a Shadow

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Mexico will inaugurate its first female president Tuesday, marking a new chapter for the country but also the end of an era as populist leader Andrés Manuel López Obrador steps down, the Guardian reported.

The former mayor of Mexico City, Claudia Sheinbaum, a close ally of the former president, will also become the country’s first Jewish president. She will face steep challenges in tackling the country’s problems, particularly violence and corruption, commentators said. Meanwhile, many are wondering if she can get out from under the former president’s long shadow, the Associated Press reported.

“López Obrador didn’t just handpick Claudia,” Lila Abed, director of the Mexico Institute at the Wilson Center, told the AP. “He also selected many of the current deputies, senators and governors who are loyal to him, not necessarily to her.”

Meanwhile, López Obrador – widely known as AMLO, and deeply popular, will be missed, added Al Jazeera.

He came to power in 2018 on a platform promising a “fourth transformation” agenda aimed at reshaping Mexico’s economic and political landscape, tackling inequality, corruption and violence.

His administration achieved some notable successes on the socioeconomic front, the Guardian said, such as increasing Mexico’s minimum wage, introducing direct cash transfers to low-income families, and implementing labor reforms that helped reduce poverty.

By 2023, trust in the Mexican government had surged to 61 percent, up from 29 percent when he took office.

AMLO’s popularity translated into his Morena party’s landslide victory in the June 2024 elections, giving it a supermajority in congress. This allows Morena to rewrite the constitution at will, cementing its political dominance until at least 2027.

Still, critics say his presidency was also plagued by ongoing violence and corruption. Mexico recorded more than 30,000 murders in each year of his tenure, ranking the country among the most violent in Latin America.

Critics also complained about the militarization of Mexico’s security forces during his presidency: Although he pledged to return soldiers to their barracks, López Obrador expanded the military’s role in domestic security and used them to implement infrastructure projects.

Last week, Morena passed a constitutional amendment placing the 130,000-member National Guard – created as a civilian security force – under military control, a move that raised concerns about democratic backsliding and human rights abuses, according to Newsweek.

Meanwhile, Sheinbaum has vowed to continue many of her predecessor’s policies but maintained that she is an independent leader with her own priorities, particularly regarding security and migration.

The new leader will face the daunting challenge of addressing the rising violence that plagued Amlo’s tenure while navigating a deeply divided political landscape, Axios noted.

Meanwhile, questions remain about his ongoing influence.

The recent appointment of his son, Andrés López Beltrán, to a key Morena leadership position, prompted speculation that the outgoing president will continue to exert power behind the scenes.