How Morena Broke Mexico’s Glass Ceiling

Claudia Sheinbaum of the far-left Morena party has made history as the first woman to be elected president of Mexico. Her predecessor, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, widely known by his initials AMLO, founded the Morena party as a personal campaign vehicle for himself and his allies in 2012. Fueled by AMLO’s resistance to neoliberalism, Morena has emerged as the largest political force in Mexico by far. Morena continues to grow dramatically even after AMLO’s retirement in 2024. Under Sheinbaum, the party’s coalition won two-thirds of the Chamber of Deputies and nearly secured a supermajority in the Senate. The pro-worker positions of AMLO and Sheinbaum offer a direct counter to Mexico’s exploitative relationship with global capital and suggest a systemic shift towards wealth redistribution and egalitarianism. 

AMLO has been a prominent fixture within Mexican politics for decades. Originally a state bureaucrat for the once-dominant Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) during the 1970s and 80s, he resigned in protest over the government’s embrace of privatization. He later helped form the left-wing Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD), vowing to “put the poor first, for the wellbeing of all.” After losing back-to-back bids for the Tabasco governorship, AMLO was elected mayor of Mexico City in 2000. Providing material support for the impoverished has been the basis of AMLO’s political philosophy. As mayor, he subsidized public transportation and implemented a pension program for single mothers and the elderly, along with other fiscal policies aimed at improving the city’s basic standard of living. While AMLO enjoyed near-universal acclaim from his constituents, critics slammed his “populist” economic approach. Despite leaving the mayoral office with a 90% approval rating, AMLO was narrowly defeated in both the 2006 and 2012 presidential elections. He left the PRD shortly after the 2012 elections, opting to lead his own independent movement known as Morena. 

At first, Morena’s primary objective was to empower AMLO and his vision for ending poverty. According to the Wilson Center, “Morena’s agenda is closely linked to AMLO’s ideology and personal values. Not only does AMLO continue to be the party’s dominant figure, but his political power has boosted the support that several Morena gubernatorial candidates received.” Utilizing this top-down party structure, Morena built a reliable base of working class supporters who felt earnestly connected to AMLO’s cult of personality and progressive track record. One voter, a 74 year old mother living in Mexico's Ecatepec municipality, told journalists “We’re already in the abyss, (AMLO) is one of those men who is only born every 100 years.” After winning the 2018 presidential election in a landslide, AMLO applied his famed welfare-based mayoral strategy to the entirety of Mexico. Christine Murray of the Financial Times wrote “Social spending is up 30 percent in real terms since he took office… Lopez Obrador also oversaw a more than doubling of Mexico’s paltry daily minimum wage to 250 pesos ($15), with little negative economic fallout. That helped to bring millions of Mexicans out of moderate poverty.” Rather than demonizing minorities or the poor, as is custom with politicians in the United States and Europe, AMLO has targeted Mexico’s corrupt financial elite, labeling them a “mafia of power.” The former Mexican president has even suggested that global financial institutions such as the IMF should apologize for pushing neoliberal policies on developing economies. Although AMLO has been compared to Latin American populist strongmen like Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez, his administration has taken a decisively democratic approach. AMLO said at a 2018 campaign rally, "We will carry out a peaceful transformation, ordered, but profound and even radical.” In accordance with Mexico’s constitution, AMLO stepped down from the presidency at the end of his first six-year term, allowing Claudia Sinebaum to run for office. 

Former climate scientist Claudia Sheinbaum has been a close associate of AMLO since her tenure as Mexico City’s environmental chief in 2000. During AMLO’s unprecedented 2018 presidential run, she was elected mayor of Mexico City as a member of the Morena platform. A former student activist, Sheinbaum has made social justice a distinct priority in her political career. Some of her proposals included “reinforcing action to combat climate change, making good on ‘substantive equality’ for women, strengthening LGBTQ rights, and putting ‘special emphasis’ on education.” Sheinbaum’s campaign for president came during an alarming femicide epidemic in Mexico, claiming the lives of at least 968 women in 2022 alone. The staggering rise in gender-based violence has been linked to worsening cartel crime and Mexico’s machismo culture. The Harvard International Review defines machismo as “the set of ideals and beliefs that support the notion that men are superior to women. Men assume a dominant role in society where they may show little weakness and must protect the vulnerable, usually by exercising control over women.” Despite this deep-rooted misogyny, Sheinbaum received the highest vote share of any presidential candidate since Mexico’s democratic transition in 2001. Morena’s 2024 electoral triumph was so absolute that AMLO’s previous party, the PRD, lost its national registration due to a lack of remaining voters. As president, Sheinbaum has promised to continue many of the economic commitments popularized by her predecessor, such as pensions for the elderly and opposing privatization. Morena’s electoral dominance, both in 2018 and 2024, have given Sheinbaum a commanding social-democratic mandate that could transform Mexico entirely.

The Morena movement represents a unique moment within Latin American politics. Founded as a unipolar electoral platform, Morena has become a complex machine of recognizable figures and principles. The party successfully broke from the neoliberal mold imposed by foreign business interests, bringing about a new era of autonomy for the Mexican people. With the historic election of Claudia Sheinbaum, Morena has shown that governments can expand welfare programs whilst achieving consistent growth and high public approval. As the extreme-right makes gains throughout much of the Western world, Mexico’s youngest and most beloved party has championed equality and economic progressivism.