One year ago, Claudia Sheinbaum became Mexico’s first female president. She arrived with the promise of continuing and expanding the plan of the ruling party, MORENA, known as the “Fourth Transformation.”
In her first annual report, presented on September 1, Sheinbaum highlighted the expansion of social programs and an increase in the minimum wage as key achievements. The report demonstrated continuity in government priorities and showed that MORENA’s policies have brought progress in poverty reduction, an essential need in Mexico.
The security situation, however, remains extremely complex. Sheinbaum points to a 25.3% decrease in intentional homicides from September 2024 to July 2025. At the same time, the homicide rate remains high, especially in certain regions particularly affected by conflicts between criminal groups, and between these groups and government security forces, as is the case in Sinaloa. Additionally, extortion has increased, and the number of disappeared people continues to rise.
Sheinbaum’s arrival also raised the question of whether the new president would seek to mitigate or reverse some of the policies promoted by her predecessor, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, especially those regressive for democracy, such as the increased involvement of the armed forces in civilian tasks and the weakening of various democratic checks and balances.
A year later, we can conclude that Sheinbaum has not changed course on these López Obrador policies. During her term, worrying processes have continued to advance, such as the growing consolidation of political power to the detriment of the separation of powers.
Moreover, Sheinbaum’s first year has been marked by the implementation of measures to respond to pressure from the US government under President Donald Trump, covering issues ranging from tariffs to threats of military action.
How has Sheinbaum’s first year in power unfolded? What defines her initial administration in terms of democracy and human rights?
Here are five key points:
1. Judicial elections: A predetermined outcome that undermines judicial independence
Following the controversial judicial reform promoted by López Obrador to establish the appointment of all judges in the country’s judicial branches by popular vote, the first judicial elections were held in June. The process presented various obstacles to citizens’ ability to cast an informed vote and to candidates’ possibilities of competing on equal terms.
In the final weeks of the electoral process, “accordions” (written guides) indicating for whom citizens should vote were distributed widely, both on paper and online, especially by structures associated with the ruling party. The names that appeared on the main accordions match exactly those of the 16 people elected to the Supreme Court (SCJN), the new Judicial Discipline Tribunal, and the Superior Chamber of the Electoral Tribunal. In short, the expected result materialized: the use of an election to facilitate the political capture of the courts.
Despite irregularities and national and international concerns about the risks to judicial independence posed by the reform, Sheinbaum has not deviated from López Obrador’s stance on the matter, instead affirming that the judicial elections were a success and that Mexico is now “the most democratic country in the world.”
2. Military empowerment
Following another constitutional reform in 2024 promoted by López Obrador, and after Sheinbaum submitted a corresponding bill in June, Mexico’s Congress approved legislative reforms to incorporate the National Guard (GN) into the Ministry of Defense (SEDENA), officially making the GN part of the armed forces.
In parallel, Sheinbaum presented another bill, which, after modifications in Congress, resulted in legislation on criminal investigation and intelligence that provides for real-time access by security institutions (civilian and military) to the population’s personal data held by both public and private institutions. In a country already notorious for the state’s illegal use of malware to spy on activists and journalists, the creation of these types of platforms and systems for accessing sensitive data has raised alarms about the risks of unchecked state espionage.
3. Bilateral relations with the United States: Ongoing threats
Sheinbaum has had to devote a disproportionate amount of her first year to responding to the demands, announcements, and policies of the administration of Donald Trump, who took office as president of the United States in January 2025. Among the most well-known are the cyclical threats and partial implementation of tariffs, as well as the possibility of the United States taking military action in Mexico as part of the so-called ‘war on drugs’.
In August, it was revealed that Trump had instructed the US Department of Defense to take action against certain criminal organizations in Latin America considered “terrorists” by his administration, a category that includes several Mexican cartels. In response, Sheinbaum reiterated that Mexico will not allow unilateral actions on its territory. (In another article, WOLA analyzes why military force is not an effective tool for reducing the illegal drug trade.) If there were any doubt about whether the Trump administration truly intended to use military force in the region, on September 2, US military forces sank a boat off the coast of Venezuela, killing 11 people and claiming that it was an action against drug trafficking—the first of several such attacks.
In this tense environment, Sheinbaum has opted to keep a “cool head” while taking a series of actions to try to avoid increased tariffs and other harmful actions from the US. Among the publicly known actions are: the deployment of thousands of additional Mexican military personnel to the shared border; the transfer to the United States of dozens of Mexican nationals sought by the US justice system, outside the legal framework governing extradition; and efforts to show that Mexican authorities are seizing more fentanyl. One day after the first US military attack mentioned above, the governments of Mexico and the US announced that bilateral cooperation between the two countries on security matters would continue through meetings of a high-level working group.
Meanwhile, on immigration issues, Mexico continues to play the role of “vertical wall” already seen in previous years: in this context, the Mexican government has increased its detentions of migrants and has accepted, under various mechanisms, the return of non-Mexicans from the US.
4. The era of women: Some pending tasks
When Sheinbaum came to power, she declared that Mexico had entered the “era of women” and took several actions aimed at promoting this priority. She secured the rapid approval of constitutional reforms enshrining women’s right to substantive equality. She also elevated the government office dedicated to women’s issues to the level of a ministry, creating the Ministry of Women.
At the same time, the 2025 federal budget drew criticism for failing to include the funds needed to close gaps and promote gender equality. The lack of a transformative perspective on gender in the budget—which began long before Sheinbaum’s six-year term—led the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) to prioritize the issue in its recommendations to Mexico’s government in July.
Other Committee recommendations and assessments by civil society point to the need to improve government actions or policies on issues including violence against women and girls, gender-based discrimination, the division of care work, women’s access to justice and due process, gender equality in the workplace, access to health services, and the risks faced by women human rights defenders, among others.
5. The disappearance crisis
There are more than 133,000 disappeared and missing people in Mexico, a number that continues to grow. López Obrador, after initially promoting actions to improve the state’s capacity to search for and identify the disappeared, ultimately weakened or reversed some of those same steps.
The main action to combat disappearances presented by the state in 2025 has been the creation of a Unified Identity Platform, which falls short of being the energetic and comprehensive response that the crisis requires. On the other hand, the departure in August of the former head of the National Search Commission (CNB), who had been criticized since her appointment for lacking the necessary profile, has been seen as a possible opportunity for the CNB to strengthen its role and performance. In September, the government appointed Martha Lidia Pérez Gumecindo, a former special prosecutor for disappearances, as the new head of the CNB; she will now need to lead the institution forward following its prior setbacks.
For their part, the families of the disappeared continue to search for their loved ones in precarious and sometimes high-risk conditions: 12 family searchers have been killed in the last five years.
The Ayotzinapa case marked its 11th anniversary five days ago. Sheinbaum’s first year has not seen significant progress toward justice. In July, the dismissal of the case’s previous special prosecutor, accused of corruption, “eccentricities, and opulence,” became public knowledge. The families of the 43 disappeared students left a meeting with Sheinbaum on September 4 disappointed by the lack of progress in the case.
Both in the Ayotzinapa case and in the broader universe of disappearances, the families continue to be a permanent example of dignity and resistance, while the state has yet to adequately rise to the challenge of this painful and destructive crisis for Mexican society.
