Editor’s note: On Mexico’s rapid, breath-taking descent into total surveillance
by Andrew Law, founder and editor.
In 2014, Luisa Alcalde — now Morena’s party president — blasted then-President Peña Nieto’s telecom reform on Twitter: “Signal blocking, prior censorship, data retention, geolocation all in the hands of #Segob.” A decade later, her critique fits just as well with the sweeping intelligence and security laws passed last week by her own party under President Claudia Sheinbaum.
The new laws mandate a centralized national platform compiling every citizen’s and company’s personal data: telecom records, banking info, healthcare, education, vehicle registrations, court records. All of it. With no independent court oversight, no meaningful access restrictions, and the possibility of real-time geolocation.
At the same time, Congress pushed through reforms to the National Guard that, as we report this week, all but erase the line between military and civilian authority.
Ana Lilia Moreno of México Evalúa tells me the changes mark one of the most disruptive shifts in Mexican public life since…
Mexico’s democratic transition turns 25 - or only 7, if you ask Morena…
by David Agren, writer-at-large.
Morena supporters marked one of their movement’s many anniversaries on July 1: the seventh anniversary of the ruling party’s founder, former Andrés Manuel López Obrador, overwhelmingly winning the 2018 election.
AMLO’s win brought the left to power, though critics accused the new president of governing like a conservative with his initial agenda of austerity. And supporters claimed AMLO’s win finally brought democracy to Mexico, despite multiparty elections being held at all levels of government throughout this century.
“This July 1st, we proudly celebrate the day of the revolution of consciences. Long live the Fourth Transformation!” President Claudia Sheinbaum posted on X.
The so-called Fourth Transformation (4T) – as AMLO christened his movement – diligently marks anniversaries, which offer pretexts for a populist movement to mobilise its base and herd social-benefits recipients to rallies.
Mexico also marked a major anniversary – unrelated to AMLO – which passed uncelebrated: Former president Vicente Fox ended one party rule on July 2, 2000, ousting…
Mexico’s government is using the disappeared to build a surveillance state, families say
by Madeleine Wattenbarger.
A polemical point of the reform to the General Disappearance Law passed by Mexican legislators this week is the use of a biometric CURP to search for missing people. The reform is part of a broad legislative package that includes a reform to the General Population Law, which establishes the use of a CURP with fingerprints and a photograph as an identification document obligatory for access to public and private services. The data will go into a Unified Identity Platform (PUI, by its initials in Spanish), which will, in theory, permit the authorities to locate missing people by their CURP.
A previous iteration of the biometric CURP proposal was backed by the World Bank, and similar initiatives were proposed by Felipe Calderón, Enrique Peña Nieto and former Secretary of the Interior Olga Sanchez Cordero. The reform comes out of a proposal presented by Claudia Sheinbaum on March 27, after disappearances in Mexico were thrown into the spotlight: search collectives found a ranch in Teuchitlán, Jalisco, where victims of forced recruitment were held, and the United Nations Committee on Forced Disappearance gave the official assessment that systematic state disappearances exist in Mexico.
After Sheinbaum presented the reform to the General Disappearance Law, the government held a series of feedback sessions with search collectives and victims’ families. Some of the families’ proposals appear in the revised law passed by the Senate. It will incorporate…
Textbook populism fueled Mexico’s debt and now it’s near breaking point
by Macario Schettino.
Editor’s note: Mr. Schettino is an eminent Mexican economist and retired professor at Monterrey Tech’s School of Government.
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As the United States debates the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBB), there may also be public discussion around that country’s fiscal sustainability. The US isn’t the only country struggling with the size of its debt — it's actually a very common issue among industrialized nations. But the issue is particularly important for Mexico.
Mexico has long been one of the countries with the lowest tax collection rates in the world, measured as a share of GDP. Prior to the 2013 tax reform, tax revenues were below 10% of GDP, supplemented by oil revenues and income from state-owned enterprises and agencies, bringing the total to about 18% of GDP. That was all the government had to fund its expenses — hence the poor coverage and quality of public services.
Although Mexico joined the global trend toward a welfare state starting in the 1960s, it never enacted a fiscal reform capable of funding its growing obligations. While many attempts were made, only one succeeded — in 1980, with the creation of a value-added tax. The next major reform came in 2013, raising tax revenue from 8% to 14% of GDP. With that, the government’s total revenues reached 22% of GDP.
Those revenues, along with a moderate deficit, allowed for spending close to 24% of GDP — still insufficient to fully meet the government's responsibilities at a reasonable level. However, under former President López Obrador’s administration, public spending increased significantly without a corresponding increase in revenues. As a result…
Mexico is paying a high price for its opposition parties’ malaise
by Gerónimo Gutíerrez.
Editor’s note: Amb. Gutíerrez served as Mexico’s Ambassador to the United States and also as Mexico’s Undersecretary for Governance.
Mexico’s political opposition today finds itself in a dire position. Since its founding in 2014, the ruling Morena Party has made extraordinary gains. It now holds the presidency, 23 of 32 governorships, comfortable majorities in the federal congress and 27 state legislatures, and, together with its allied parties (the Workers' Party, or PT, and the Green Party, or PVEM), has the power to enact laws and even amend the Constitution at will. President Sheinbaum enjoys exceptionally high approval ratings (around 70%), much like her predecessor, former President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, did.
In recent years, Morena-led governments have taken actions that appear to significantly weaken institutional checks and balances, the separation of powers, and democratic norms. To be sure, Morena and the President reject this characterization — but critics, both in Mexico and abroad, make a persuasive case. For example, the Global Democracy Index published by The Economist now classifies Mexico as a hybrid regime, no longer even a flawed democracy.
In the 2024 election, the traditional parties (PAN, PRI, and PRD) received only 27% of the presidential vote, compared to the 60% won by Claudia Sheinbaum. Currently, the PAN governs just four states, the PRI only two, and both hold modest parliamentary groups in Congress. The PRD no longer exists. Movimiento Ciudadano (MC) appears to be the emerging party. It secured a significant 10% of the presidential vote in the last election and currently governs two states. However, it is hampered by internal inconsistencies and scandals, which raise serious doubts about its long-term potential.
Under these circumstances, it is only natural to ask whether the political opposition has pursued the right strategy to counter Morena’s rise — and if not, what that strategy could look like in the future. There are no easy answers, but perhaps a few sensible working hypotheses.
In a country where 43% of the 128 million population lives in poverty (according to 2022 official figures), machine politics work. The Morena governments have built a vast platform of social programs, including direct cash transfers that reach an estimated 25 million households. Opposition parties have wavered between timidly supporting these programs and criticizing their effectiveness, political bias, and fiscal sustainability. Unless they can clearly articulate where they stand…
Mexico’s new security laws expand military power and erode civilian oversight
The final stage of the National Guard’s militarization is now underway.
In September 2024, former President López Obrador amended the Constitution to formally place the National Guard—already operating in practice as a military force—under the control of the Ministry of Defense. Last week, Congress convened an extraordinary session to approve legal reforms introduced by President Claudia Sheinbaum. These reforms aim to align at least nine existing laws with the 2024 constitutional amendment and complete the transformation of the National Guard into the fourth branch of the armed forces. These secondary laws mark the culmination of the process initiated by López Obrador and underscore that Morena’s priorities remain unchanged.
Throughout its electoral victories, Morena has made clear its conviction that the military should play a prevalent role in public life. The secondary legislation has further entrenched this vision, and the concern lies not merely in the specific laws being passed, but in the broader ambition to forge a new political regime defined by the primacy of military authority. In liberal democracies, the military sphere is deliberately constrained; in illiberal regimes, it is expanded.
Before the 2024 reform, the Constitution stated that in times of peace, the military could not perform any activities other than those strictly related to military discipline. The constitutional reform changed this, allowing the armed forces to carry out any function established by secondary law. This is a significant shift which opens up many new possibilities for what the armed forces are allowed to do.
For example, the amendments submitted to the legislature expand the powers of this body, authorizing it, among other things, to intercept private communications and carry out undercover operations. This move comes alongside…
New rules: The 4T ushers in a new age of peak power
by David Agren.
Former PRI governor Fidel Herrera passed away recently. He was remembered for a sordid administration in the late 2000s, when Los Zetas took over the state. As the discovery of a clandestine refinery in Veracruz revealed, the state-crime nexus continues – even with Morena in power since 2018, having ousted Herrera’s Institutional Revolutionary Party.
Herrera scandalized Mexico throughout his term. He won the lottery twice while in office. And he coined the trademark phrase: “Estoy ahorita en plenitud del pinche poder” – roughly translated as “I’m at the height of my f*cking power.” A less polite translation would be a confession to being drunk with power.
The line encapsulated the impunity and abuse of authority during his term in Veracruz, which was followed by the thievery of fellow príista Javier Duarte – under whom Veracruz became a cemetery for journalists.
Morena and its allies in the so-called “Fourth Transformation” (4T) have channeled Herrera’s authoritarianism in recent weeks – even longer, according to critics – as they push as a series of reforms through congress, where they hold constitutional-proof majorities.
The 16 reforms range from changing wildlife laws to ban the use of captive marine mammals in theme parks to building platforms for boosting state surveillance capacities and a measure to allow National Guard members to seek public office (despite being under National Defence Secretariat command.)
Mexico’s economy is declining & faces mounting threats
by Macario Schettino.
In my first column for The Mexico Brief, six weeks ago, I wrote that Mexico was in a recession. Now that we are nearing the end of the year’s first half, the evidence is even stronger. Although an unusual event in February has led many to think otherwise, the truth is that we are already seeing a generalized downward trend.
Consumption contracted year-over-year for the fourth consecutive month in March, and the preliminary indicator suggests no meaningful change in April and May. On average, the decline has been -0.5% compared to the previous year, starting from last October when the current administration took office.
In investment, the situation is worse. The decline began in September, and the following seven months have all shown negative numbers, averaging a yearly contraction of -4.4%, also since October.
In overall economic activity, growth since October is flat, with three out of those six months showing contraction. The impact is now noticeable in employment, with monthly declines and virtually zero annual growth. It’s worth remembering that — since the year 2000 — whenever employment grows at a rate below 1% annually, a recession is a certainty.
Except for employment data, which we have up to May, the rest of the indicators end in March and therefore do not yet reflect the full impact of global uncertainty caused by Donald Trump — especially since the “Liberation Day” event on the afternoon of April 2. We don’t know much about what has happened since then, except in the case of remittances, which saw one of the steepest drops on record in April: -12% compared to April 2024.
Claudia Sheinbaum faces adversity
by Luis Rubio.
Editor’s note: Mr. Rubio as a political analyst and chairman of México Evalua.
From the moment she was nominated as Morena's presidential candidate, speculation arose regarding her capacity and willingness to break with her predecessor, as has been the tradition in Mexican politics. Although speculation has not ceased, the evidence is overwhelming: the president sees herself as an operator or implementer of AMLO’s agenda. However, circumstances have changed, and the need to respond to a scenario infinitely more complex than the one her predecessor faced (in part due to the legacy he left behind) is forcing her to increasingly take actions that he clearly disapproves of. The question then is: what comes next?
In Mexican political tradition, it was said that the outgoing ruler did not choose a successor but rather an executioner. That clearly did not happen with AMLO, who carefully selected someone with the skills to manage a government, but not to undertake bold political initiatives. Which of these paths will prove true? So far, there is no doubt that AMLO’s logic dominates the landscape. At the same time, it’s not clear what the true profile of the government led by Sheinbaum actually is.
Boz, a publication focused on Latin American governments, conducted an interesting analysis of Claudia Sheinbaum.
