Media Tip Sheets

New president for Mexico but same problems remain

Tuesday, June 4, 2024, By Ellen Mbuqe
Reporters looking for an expert on the issues facing the newly elected president of Mexico, Claudia Sheinbaum, please consider the name of Gladys McCormick, an expert on US/Mexico relations and associate professor in the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University
Professor McCormick offers insight on how President-elect Sheinbaum became the first woman president of Mexico and the issues facing her presidency from national security to military issues.  To arrange an interview, please contact Ellen James Mbuqe, executive director of media relations, at ejmbuqe@syr.edu.
From Professor McCormick:
  • “A woman was elected president in Mexico and the runner-up was also a woman. Neither of them focused heavily on their gender on the campaign trail. How is this possible? Since the 1990s, legislative reforms have been in place to increase the number of women representatives in Congress. The most decisive of these steps came in 2014 when the government passed a constitutional amendment mandating 50% gender parity in the nominations for candidates for all electoral offices. These steps socialized the presence of women in Mexican elections at all levels and guaranteed the creation of a pipeline of strong, effective, and prepared female political candidates to steadily run for more and more offices.

 

  • “The election of a woman does not mean that gender issues will loom large in the platform of President Sheinbaum. Mexico has one of the highest rates of violence against women in the Western Hemisphere, with ten women killed every day. Nevertheless, the election of a woman is a clear signal of how far women have come as political actors since they received the right the vote 70 years ago,” said McCormick

 

  • “Come October when the new president steps into her office at the National Palace, she will confront several urgent issues. These include what to do with increasing deficit spending, unsustainable subsidies for the government’s oil company (PEMEX), and a security crisis afflicting the lives of most Mexicans. This last one – security – is perhaps the most worrisome because of the complexity surrounding how the country has arrived at a moment where voters indicated that extortion, kidnapping, and impunity are the number one concern for them, where Mexican cities dominate the top-ten most dangerous places in the world, where 98% of crimes go unpunished, and the latest tally has over 200 organized criminal groups active in Mexico today,” said McCormick.
  • “Claudia Sheinbaum has promised to continue AMLO’s approach to security, including the ‘hugs not bullets’ approach to social welfare spending to counteract the effects of organized crime. Analysts have used the phrase ‘there is little light between AMLO and Sheinbaum.’ Yet, the issue of security will put this to the test for several reasons: President Sheinbaum will have to deliver on some new policy or measure to counteract growing rates of insecurity to meet some of her promises on the campaign trail,” said McCormick.
  • “Even more worrisome will be what AMLO’s relationship with the military will be going forward. He has had increasingly close ties to the military and has given the military broad control over public infrastructure and enforcement of duties outside the scope of the military, such as in immigration enforcement. This is likely to continue because President Sheinbaum will be loath to antagonize her predecessor with his closest ally. If this is the case, we are likely to see the military exercise its muscle further to assert its dominance in the governing of Mexico,” said McCormick.