The Sheinbaum reshuffle is complete
The president's consolidation of power in State and party also marks a renewal.
The Big News Breakdown. Unpacking this week’s most important news.
It was president Claudia Sheinbaum’s earliest triumphal moment. Just days after Donald Trump had threatened Mexico with sweeping tariffs (for the first time), the US president walked them back, giving the Mexican president an excuse to celebrate with a massive rally at Mexico City’s most important civic centre, the Zocalo.
What most political analysts remembered from that day, though, was an unfortunate moment in which Sheinbaum’s rivals and hangers-on within the ruling Morena party literally turned their backs on the president to take a photo amongst themselves.
It was likely a simple mistake but the symbolism was not lost on observers. The president who had succeeded Andrés Manuel López Obrador, the all-powerful founder of Morena, looked like a political minnow in comparison; unable to control her former political rivals and unable to pass her own legislative agenda.
That was March 2025. Today, all those politicians are no more—or they are at least much diminished from the empowered state they found themselves in just over a year ago. Each one has since been demoted or booted out from a powerful job. Claudia Sheinbaum has imposed her authority after a reshuffle that began in early April and ended last week.
