MEXICO CITY — Each September, Mexico’s president appears before a crowd of tens of thousands in the nation’s central square to perform the grito, the shout of independence commemorating the country’s break from colonial rule.
This year, for the first time, a woman will lead the masses in chants of “Long live Mexico!”
Monday’s ceremony in Mexico City’s main plaza will be a historic moment for the nation and for President Claudia Sheinbaum, who, in her first year as the country’s first female leader, has maintained remarkably high marks despite a spate of domestic and international challenges.
Sheinbaum, 63, who took office last Oct. 1, boasts approval ratings above 70% and has notched multiple victories: winning passage of major constitutional reforms, overseeing unprecedented judicial elections and deftly negotiating with President Trump, making concessions on immigration and security to avert the worst of his threatened tariffs on Mexican goods.
She has also overseen a 25% drop in homicides, an impressive feat in a country exhausted by drug violence that she chalks up to her administration’s aggressive new crackdown on organized crime.
“We’re doing well and we’ll get better,” Sheinbaum said this month during a speech to Congress, where members of her political party, which controls both houses of the legislature, cheered her with shouts of “Long live Claudia!”
But perhaps Sheinbaum’s biggest feat has been emerging from the long shadow cast by her predecessor, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, a hero among the working class whose support was crucial to her election.
As a candidate for López Obrador’s Morena party, Sheinbaum promised to continue his populist project, which sought to reduce poverty and shift power away from traditional economic and political elites.
After she won in a landslide, she faced criticism that she would be his “puppet,” a discourse she dismissed as sexist.
Still, there’s no question that Sheinbaum has had to walk a tricky line: defining her presidency on her own terms while also demonstrating loyalty to the political movement that got her there.
As López Obrador has retreated from public life, retiring to his ranch in southern Mexico, Sheinbaum has embraced many of his signature policies, including a popular welfare program that distributes cash to youth, people with disabilities and senior citizens.
She has continued López Obrador’s practice of daily morning news conferences, where she often pays lip service to the former president and repeats his signature phrase: “For the good of all, the poor first.”
Political analyst Jorge Zepeda Patterson said that Sheinbaum has successfully outmaneuvered other Morena party members, including several former political rivals, to be seen as the new voice of López Obrador’s movement.
“She is the heir, she is the interpreter of the entire movement, and that is no small thing,” he said.
Sheinbaum also muscled across the finish line one of his most controversial undertakings: an overhaul of the judicial system that mandates judges be elected by popular vote. Critics argue the move was designed to concentrate power in the hands of Morena and opens the door to corruption.
“That’s something dictators only invent to control the judiciary,” said Ernesto Zedillo, a former president and leader of the Institutional Revolutionary Party.
But while furthering López Obrador’s agenda, Sheinbaum has also quietly been carving her own path.
While he was combative and highly ideological, railing for hours at his news conferences against neoliberalism and the “power mafia” that he said long controlled Mexico, Sheinbaum has embraced a more diplomatic tone. She says Mexico’s future depends on its entrepreneurs. In her news conferences, she chooses her words carefully, a serene smile on her face.
Her most significant departure from her mentor has been on matters of security.
As part of his “hugs not bullets” policy, López Obrador scaled back security cooperation with the U.S., ordered soldiers to stop confronting cartels and put an emphasis on new social programs. Throughout his six-year term, homicides hovered near record highs and criminal groups expanded their control.
Sheinbaum, under pressure from Trump to clamp down on drug trafficking, has changed tack, dismantling fentanyl labs, carrying out major drug busts and sending dozens of accused cartel leaders to the U.S. to face justice.
Despite those wins, major challenges loom.
The biggest one is Trump.
Mexico’s economy was already on the rocks when the U.S. president began issuing tariff threats, spooking overseas investors who once viewed Mexico as a pipeline to move products into the U.S. tax-free. As a result, growth has slowed.
Sheinbaum and Trump have yet to meet, but have spoken several times in phone conversations both leaders have described as successful. “More and more, we are getting to know and understand each other,” Trump said in August.
For Sheinbaum one constant pressure is the threat of U.S. military action in Mexico.
Trump recently signed an order allowing the Defense Department to use force against Latin American drug cartels, which he has designated as foreign terrorist groups. The U.S. military recently destroyed a Venezuelan boat it said was trafficking drugs, killing 11.
Carlos Bravo Regidor, a Mexican political analyst, said much of Sheinbaum’s first year has been dominated by two men: Trump and López Obrador, who is commonly known by his initials, AMLO.
“She’s trapped between the legacy of AMLO and the reality of Donald Trump,” he said.
Sheinbaum’s posture on possible U.S. military action embodies how she’s dealt with Trump. She’ll speak plainly — “There will be no invasion” and Mexico is “not a colony of anyone” — but resists engaging in tit-for-tat remarks to stoke Trump’s ire.
More than once, when asked to respond to Trump’s latest hyperbolic comment, she’s replied: “President Trump has his own way of communicating.”
Still, there’s little doubt that Sheinbaum has benefited from the wave of nationalism that has surged here in the face of an American president who persecuted Mexican migrants living in the U.S. and threatened drone strikes on Mexican territory. That sentiment is likely to be on display on Monday, when Mexicans don the red, white and green of their flag and convene in the Zócalo for the independence celebrations.
There will also be a strong current of feminism.
Sheinbaum has often repeated the mantra she first spoke the night she won office: “I didn’t arrive alone, I arrived with all Mexican women.”
For many Mexicans across party lines, her presidency has been transformative.
Mexico City resident Esther Ramos, 40, said she planned to take her young daughters to see Sheinbaum deliver the grito, not as a lesson in politics, per se, but as a lesson in what is possible.
“My two daughters will see that a woman is capable of achieving whatever they want,” she said.
The post Mexico’s first female president completes first year with high approval, but challenges loom appeared first on Los Angeles Times.
