Mexico: The Situation After Two Years with Sheinbaum

Featured image: Satirical comic depicting Sheinbaum with Pinocchio on her shoulder stating “You said everything was fine.” Source: Mural Newspaper

As of October 1, President of Mexico, Claudia Sheinbaum, will have served two years of her six-year-long presidential term. Despite statements proclaiming herself a champion of the rights of the poor, such as “for the good of all, the poor come first,” during the so-called “Summit in Defense of Democracy” in Spain this April. She has shown clearly where her true allegiance lies.

In a recent article published by the Mural Newspaper on September 2, the hypocrisy of Sheinbaum is revealed. Mural Newspaper emphasizes her neglect of the people, highlighting among other points her outright disregard for the disappeared – with 135,000 people currently missing throughout the country – and Sheinbaums silence and protection of the military, such as with the case of the 43 disappeared students from Ayotzinapa, or the case of Dr. Ernesto Sernas García.

Mural also emphasizes the attacks on the peasants and indigenous, mentioning examples such as State organized persecution and harrasment against “autonomous organizations such as the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN) and the Indigenous and Popular Council of Guerrero – Emiliano Zapata (CIPOG-EZ)”

Regarding the poor in Mexico, which Sheinbaum brazenly claims to “come first,” one can see attacks on the pensions, such as the refusal to repeal the ISSSTE Law of 2007, as well as continuous inflation and stagnating wages – not enough to get by on. The dispossession of peasant and indigenous communities, such as the theft of water and land by mining and construction monopolies.

Mural writes that all of this comes as the rich prosper, with banks making more money than ever, and retail, mining, and telecommunications monopolies continuing to dominate and set prices as they please. The same big landlords and mining monopolies continue to destroy the environment to line their pockets with megaprojects, such as the Mujer Solteca Dam, in a separate article Mural Newspaper writes that “specialists and advocacy organizations warn about the major environmental and social impacts that this project will generate.”

The Zapotec Highway Corridor, another megaproject, was also recently denounced by residents of San Lorenzo Cacaotepec, a struggle that has been ongoing for 15 years. In a consultation assembly, the project was rejected unanimously by the 859 participating assembly members. Mural writes: “The authorities of the old state tried to flee the assembly without signing the act of rejection, but the people detained them until they signed and affixed their seal.”

In conclusion, Mural Newspaper writes:

“Bureaucratic capitalism did not end with MORENA, they only want to embellish it; the point is to combat it.

Sheinbaum’s government is trying to ‘beautify’ capitalism by giving away economic support that does not solve poverty and misery, while behind the scenes it ensures immoral profits for the bourgeois class.

No real change will come from the old State that protects the bosses, the mining companies, and the banks. Dignified pensions, an end to state violence, the return of land to the peasants, and justice for our disappeared will only be achieved when workers, poor peasants, and popular sectors organize independently to overthrow the ruling class and build a bright future.”