Claudia Sheinbaum and Morena serve capital and empire—not the working class

In order to analyze what a Claudia Sheinbaum presidency would mean for working class people, we have to look at Claudia as an individual politician and also see that her term in office will be a continuation of AMLO’s legacy and the Morena party platform. 

Is Claudia a well-intentioned person or not, isn’t what I consider important when the person’s job is to govern over an extremely unequal society. Ammerman mentions that Claudia is a scientist and not a career politician. As mayor of Mexico City, she instituted environmental policies such as separating garbage and measures to decrease pollution. While, as Ammerman points out, she did oversee the creation of a new metro line, linea 12, it was so poorly constructed that a portion of track collapsed on May 3, 2021, killing 27 and seriously injuring 79 people. 

Cutting corners and choosing which companies will win major civil contracts isn’t political party-specific, it’s part of the job of running Mexico City (and Mexico). Speaking of the interests of working and indigenous people while appeasing the wealthy is a skill AMLO and Morena has mastered. 

AMLO ran as a man of the people, but with the blessing of Mexico’s business class. One of the first things he did was decree the end of neoliberalism in Mexico. Then shortly after, he signed a deal with Nestle that would allow them to erect a massive coffee processing plant worth $154 million USD. It was clear at the time that the creation of this plant would negatively impact small coffee growers as well as the environment. 

In addition, AMLO pushed forward with the construction of the Tren Maya, a project worth $20 billion USD. He gave adamant support knowing the devastating impact it would have on the environment and the livelihood of indigenous people in the area, displacing at least 3,000 people.  

AMLO says that his 4th Transformation is for the good of workers, but his job as president has been to favor businesses and multinational corporations at the expense of workers and small farmers. 

My point isn’t to focus on everything horrible AMLO has done, it’s to add in some of what Ammerman leaves out, so we can have a fuller picture of Morena and its contradictions. I think AMLO’s consistent pro-business stance provides important insight for what we can expect from a Claudia Sheinbaum presidency. 

Claudia has chosen to run on a Morena ticket and has already shown her loyalty to the party platform as head of Mexico City. 

At a time when women have been militantly protesting across Mexico against widespread femicide and rape, AMLO has been dismissive. Rather than directly address the issue and propose policy or legislation that might decrease the number of femicides, he instead called for a vague focus on rebuilding morals and spirituality throughout the country.

I don’t know Claudia’s personal views on femicide, but she acted in line with AMLO and Morena when she sent the police to attack a militant women’s march in Mexico City on August 16, 2019. This protest was called in response to allegations of police raping and sexually abusing women, a police force that Claudia oversaw as head of Mexico City.     

In addition, there’s a larger point that I feel needs to be made. The job of running Mexico, regardless of political party, is to offer Mexico to multinational (mostly US and Canadian) companies as a consumer market, source of cheap labor, and source of valuable energy and land with resources available for extraction.

AMLO uses pro-worker rhetoric but does the U.S.’s bidding when it comes to immigration from South and Central America. Mexico has always been a country with brazos abiertos (open arms) that will take in anyone from anywhere. However, since the U.S.’s continued shift towards closed borders and mass deportations, AMLO has used the National Guard (which he created) to stop immigrants from entering Mexico and from arriving at the U.S. border. When Biden had thousands of people deported to Mexico, only because they spoke Spanish, AMLO went along with it. The president of Mexico is expected to do the bidding of the U.S., regardless of the human cost or what human rights abuses that entails. 

I strongly agree with Ammerman when he writes that working people are going to have to struggle in order to win significant reforms. However, I think the contradictions of an unequal, exploitive, capitalist society require working people to demand more than just reforms, but mass action and general strikes, and ultimately running society in our own class interests. That’s why I can point to some positive reforms and programs spearheaded by Morena and Claudia, but I don’t think that warrants my support. By supporting them I would be supporting the system that they represent, and their campaign to manage it on behalf of international capitalism and the prerogatives of North American imperialism.

René González Pizarro is a member of SNTE, Sección 22, Oaxaca, Mexico.