How Patriarchal Pronatalism Dominates the Conversation about the Human Future

by Nandita Bajaj / June 11th, 2024

“Global Population Growth Is Slowing Down. Here’s One Reason Why,” Scientific American

Governments worldwide are in a race to see which one can encourage the most women to have the most babies. Hungary is slashing income tax for women with four or more children. Russia is offering women with 10 or more children a “Mother-Heroine” award. Greece, Italy, and South Korea are bribing women with attractive baby bonuses. China has instituted a three-child policy. Iran has outlawed free contraceptives and vasectomies. Japan has joined forces with the fertility industry to infiltrate schools to promote early childbearing. A leading UK demographer has proposed taxing the childless. Religious myths are preventing African men from getting vasectomies. A eugenics-inspired Natal conference just took place in the U.S., a nation leading the way in taking away reproductive rights.

The push for more babies to increase our numbers is hardly a new phenomenon. Longstanding forces of reproductive control have always favored population growth. These go back 5,000 years to the institutionalized male domination and patriarchy that emerged upon the rise of early states and empires centered in cities. Societies at the vanguard of civilization had two main goals: population expansion and seizure of resources. These were realized by coercing women to have as many children as possible and by pressuring men to become soldiers. Because of the dangers of both childbirth and war, birthing and soldiering had to be exalted and reinforced through social controls. To this day, pronatalism and militarism remain among patriarchy’s key features.

Its strength undiminished over the course of millennia, pronatalism serves powerful institutions of the state, the church, the military, and the economy by preaching that parenthood is an obligation, not a choice. Pronatalism runs so deep in our society, has become so pervasive, that to this day it colors the most important policy discussions and social norms.

As the Earth system groans under the burden of too many people consuming too much stuff, a new twist on this ubiquitous ideology – one that contemptuously sees women as mere procreative vessels – plays out on the global stage. While scientists warn that human numbers are a key driver of ecological and social crises, the subject of overpopulation gets short shrift by policymakers, think tanks, and even environmental groups. We are told that numbers don’t matter; what matters is solely the level of per capita consumption.

For example, when the revered Jane Goodall spoke about the harms of population growth, environmental journalist-cum-activist George Monbiot attacked her by insinuating that she was proposing the culling of people. Elsewhere he wrote, “It’s no coincidence that most of those who are obsessed with population growth are post-reproductive wealthy white men.”

I am a woman, born in India and now living in Canada, happily childfree as I near the end of my reproductive years. I am grateful to have a steady income, but I am not wealthy. Some might say I’m obsessed with overpopulation, though obsession isn’t the right term to describe a rational assessment of the role of population in the ecological degradation that makes humanity’s future precarious.

But Monbiot’s is just one example. Environmental journalist David Roberts acknowledges that population growth is a problem and then goes on to explain why “there’s much downside and not much upside to talking about population.” Katherine Hayhoe, chief scientist at The Nature Conservancy, an organization that has been accused of “promoting false climate solutions,” says in an interview, “As a climate scientist, I know that it’s not the number of people that matters. It’s how we live.” A formal statement by The Union of Concerned Scientists reads, “We’re sometimes asked ‘Isn’t population growth driving climate change?’ But that’s the wrong question—and it can lead to dangerous answers.”

Let’s unpack these statements, all of which fall into what political and social theorist Diana Coole has called the discourses of population denialism.

The first of these, “population shaming,” justifies silence about population by pointing to the excesses of “population control” movements of the past. And it is true that these coercive efforts deserve repudiation. Beginning in the 1970s, India forcibly sterilized millions of poor people (and it was backed in this endeavor by some Western powers). That was a dark moment in a benighted time, which focused on decreasing population growth in the lower-income countries rather than on moderating dramatically higher per capita consumption in the high-income countries.

But it would be fallacious, and a disservice to the valiant history of family planning, to suppose all approaches to curbing population growth are destructive. During and following India’s reprehensible conduct, family planning programs in Thailand, Costa Rica, Iran, and elsewhere not only advanced greater personal and reproductive autonomy for girls and women, but also led to significantly lower fertility rates, decreases in poverty, and gains in environmental conservation.

We know from historical experience that slowing population growth requires upholding fundamental human rights: championing universal education, prohibiting child marriage, empowering females, improving access to family planning services, and, most of all, standing up to patriarchy and pronatalism.

This relates to another oft-used and largely-superseded discourse of population denialism that “development” or economic growth is required to spur declines in fertility, a claim that plays directly into the hands of pro-growth neoliberal interests. Research shows that declining fertility rates, however, are most closely associated with increasing use of modern contraception and are largely independent of changes in the economy.

Disproportionately focusing on reproductive control efforts in the recent past, as so many environmentalists do, entirely misses the millennia-old chokehold of compulsive pronatalism in driving population growth—which makes these environmentalists unwitting accomplices of pronatalist patriarchy.

Equally as offensive is that population denialism defies scientific evidence.

In its 2022 report, the IPCC makes abundantly clear that “globally, GDP per capita and population growth remained the strongest drivers of CO2 emissions from fossil fuel combustion in the last decade.” In a 2024 survey conducted by The Guardian, leading IPCC scientists candidly discussed their decisions to have no or fewer children, citing as their main motivations the impact of overpopulation on climate change and the fear of bringing their potential children into a perilous world environment.

In 2017, over 15,000 scientists from 184 countries issued a warning that “we are jeopardizing our future by not reining in our intense but geographically and demographically uneven material consumption and by not perceiving continued rapid population growth as a primary driver behind many ecological and even societal threats.” Other Scientists’ Warnings have raised similar alarms.

In 2022, the UN Convention to Combat Desertification warned that “within the next few decades, 129 countries will experience an increase in drought – 23 primarily due to population growth and 38 because of their interaction between climate change and population growth.”

In its 2022 report, the UN Department of Social and Economic Affairs warned that “rapid population growth makes it more difficult for low-income and lower-middle-income countries to afford the increase in public expenditures on a per capita basis that is needed to eradicate poverty, end hunger and malnutrition, and ensure universal access to health care, education and other essential services.”

It goes without saying that hyper-consumerism and affluence-seeking in rich countries have played an outsized role in these crises, yes. But to focus on consumerism alone misses the full complexity of the world problematique.

The global middle class is the fastest rising demographic group, with at least one billion people—88% from Asia—projected to join it this decade, totaling 5.3 billion middle-class consumers. And other poorer billions surely have the right to increase their standard of living. Given that we are already in an extreme state of ecological overshoot, in which we are consuming 75% percent more than Earth can regenerate, further growth in our population and economy can only come at the expense of biophysical Earth systems, which means increased peril to our collective future. Refusing to deal with the twin threats of population and consumption, both of which are at unsustainable levels, only accelerates the destruction of other life and puts us on a long-term trajectory of immiseration of billions of people.

Meanwhile, some politicians and pundits seem to believe the great threat to humankind is a shrinking economy driven by declining fertility rates and aging populations — that is, the threat is not too many people but too few. “Population declinism,” as this is known—another tentacle of population denialism—is what is fueling the global trend of pushing women to pump out the babies.

Even amid declining fertility rates due to greater gender equality, global population is still growing by about 80 million people annually, just as in 1970, adding a projected 2.5 billion before the end of this century.

Observers of the panic about declining fertility rates, such as Nobel laureate Steven Chu, have suggested that we are caught in a “Ponzi scheme” of endless growth that is “based on having more young workers than older people.” This unsustainable and ecologically-destructive scheme, which relies on an ever-increasing population, mostly serves the interests of tech billionaires, elites like Elon Musk, and the ideologies of far-Right, religious, nationalist, and market fundamentalists.

Not only has population denialism among progressives emboldened the far Right to pursue its pronatalist agenda of rolling back reproductive rights, passing stricter divorce laws, and relaxing domestic violence laws, progressives are now joining the chorus of “baby-bust” alarmism.

Media outlets regularly platform growth-biased pieces: this in the New York Times by an author whose organization received $10 million from Elon Musk for “fertility research”; this, this, and this in the Washington Post by contributors affiliated with the American Enterprise Institute, a right-wing think tank with a history of climate denial and whose funders include ExxonMobil and the Koch brothers; and this by Vox in their Future Perfect section, a billionaire-funded project embedded in the deeply controversial effective altruism philosophy.

More disturbingly, attempts to challenge pronatalism today are strategically conflated by these pro-growth actors with anti-natalism, baby hating, or misanthropy.

Meanwhile, the rights of children to be born into conditions conducive to their social, psychological, and material well being are all but trampled as nations compete to pump out, by any means necessary, the next generation of worshippers, workers, consumers, taxpayers, soldiers, and of course, procreators. Warnings from leading authorities about dire population-driven consequences for children in the form of climate change impacts and extreme poverty, among others, go unheeded.

The alarmism surrounding declining fertility rates is unfounded; it is a positive trend that represents greater reproductive choice, and one that we should accelerate. A smaller human population will immensely facilitate other transformations we need: mitigating climate change, conserving and rewilding ecosystems, making agriculture sustainable, and making communities more resilient and able to integrate more climate and war refugees.

Research shows that societies with smaller populations and aging demographics can prosper. Instead of coercing women to have more babies, we can adopt progressive policies that strengthen social safety nets, wisely reallocate resources, and see seniors as meaningful contributors to society rather than a growing burden on a shrinking pool of younger workers. We can shift the failed paradigm of endless growth and transition to an economy that respects the biophysical limits of our planet.

It’s time to reject “population shaming” that pretends to champion human rights while echoing pronatalist ideologies that treat women’s wombs as cogs in the growth machine. To defend the right of all to a livable future, we need to get off the growth treadmill, get past population denialism, and work for a future that has both fewer human beings and less consumption,

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Nandita Bajaj is the Executive Director of the NGO Population Balance and an adjunct lecturer at the Institute for Humane Education at Antioch University. Her research and advocacy work focuses on the combined impacts of pronatalism and human expansionism on reproductive, ecological, and intergenerational justice. Read other articles by Nandita.

India’s top court halts release of film ‘offensive’ to Muslim women and Islam

Shahana Yasmin
Fri, 14 June 2024 

Poster for the film Hamare Baarah (Newtech Media Entertainment)

The Supreme Court of India has stayed the release of the Bollywood film Hamare Baarah saying the teaser alone contains enough content that is offensive to married Muslim women and their religion.

The top court issued the stay order on Thursday after hearing a challenge to a Bombay High Court decision permitting the film to be released on 15 June.

The counsel for the filmmakers claimed that they had cut all objectionable scenes from the teaser in keeping with the high court’s order. “We saw the teaser today morning and all scenes are there,” the top court replied.

When the counsel said the stay order would result in losses for the filmmakers, the court said, “If teaser is so offensive, then what about the whole movie? Prima facie it seems you have failed since you yourself deleted the scenes from the teaser”.

“Hamare Baarah tells the story of Manzoor Ali Khan Sanjari, who, despite losing his first wife during childbirth, continues to have more children with his second wife, now pregnant with her sixth. When doctors warn that the pregnancy risks her life, Khan refuses an abortion,” reads the film’s synopsis on Indian ticketing platform BookMyShow.

“His daughter Alfiya, determined to save her stepmother, takes her father to court to demand an abortion. The film explores whether Alfiya can convince her father and the court and questions the entrenched patriarchy in their society.”

The synopsis echoes the sectarian rhetoric that prime minister Narendra Modi, his Bharatiya Janata Party and the wider Hindu nationalist ecosystem is accused of pushing – that Muslims have far more children than Hindus and, therefore, grab a bigger share of the country’s resources and welfare benefits.

In an election campaign speech in April, Modi falsely claimed that “Muslims had the first right to the wealth of the nation” under the previous government led by the Congress party.

“This means they will distribute this wealth to those who have more children, to infiltrators,” he said, warning the mostly Hindu crowd against voting for the opposition party. “Should your hardearned money be given to infiltrators?”

India’s Muslim population grew from 35.4 million in 1951 to 172 million in 2011 while the Hindu population rose from 303 million to 966 million, according to the latest census figures published in 2011.

The National Family Health Survey of 2019-21 shows that the fertility rate of Muslims has fallen more than that of Hindus. The fertility rate, the average number of children a woman has in her lifetime, dropped from 4.41 to 2.36 for Muslims between 1992 and 2021 and from 3.3 to 1.9 for Hindus.

The petition filed against Hamare Baarah in the Bombay High Court argued that the film, originally scheduled for release on 7 June, was derogatory to married Muslim women and their faith generally, and that the trailer misquoted a verse from the Quran.

It said the film’s release would violate Article 19(2) of the constitution, which allows for imposing “reasonable restrictions” in the “interests of the sovereignty and integrity of India”, as well as Article 25, which guarantees every citizen the “freedom of conscience and free profession, practice and propagation of religion”.

The plea asked the High Court to stop the film’s release and direct the country’s film certification body to revoke its certification.

The Central Board of Film Certification, in turn, told the court it certified the film as per procedure and after some objectionable scenes were deleted.

The court initially stayed the release of the film till 14 June and directed the board to form a review committee to watch the film and provide feedback. The board asked for time to file a detailed response, which led the high court to permit the release.

The petitioner then moved the supreme court arguing that the high court had given an “unreasoned order”. They also contested the high court’s decision asking the film board to constitute a review committee on the ground that “it is an interested party”.

The Supreme Court asked the High Court to decide on the merits of the case and granted the petitioner the freedom to object to the constitution of the review committee.

The film has already been banned in Karnataka as the state’s government feared “possibilities of communal riots”.

A trailblazing feminist says Mexico’s ‘triumph’ of a first female president is no surprise

NPR

 JUNE 1, 2024
By  Jan Johnson ,Eyder Peralta

Elena Poniatowska poses for a portrait in her home in Mexico City on May 28, 2024.

Israel Fuguemann /NPR

MEXICO CITY — At 92, Elena Poniatowska, one of Mexico's most distinguished writers, has chronicled decades of women’s history in the country.

“I’ve always believed in women,” Poniatowska told NPR, just days before a historic election in which one of two women is likely to become the most powerful political figure in Mexico.

“I think it's not a dream. I think it's a battle that has been won,” Poniatowska said on Morning Edition.

She acknowledges that the enthusiasm falls short of the fervor surrounding Hilary Clinton’s 2016 campaign in the U.S., believing it’s because voters in Mexico take it for granted and find it “completely natural.”

Even to her, she says, “It's not a miracle. It's not a great surprise.”

The two leading candidates in this race are women: Claudia Sheinbaum, the ruling party's candidate, and opposition candidate Xóchitl Gálvez. And come Sunday, Sheinbaum, a candidate Poniatowska supports, may well become the most powerful woman in Mexico.

Known as a trailblazing feminist, Poniatowska has documented the triumphs of writers, painters, and other notable women who have struggled against systemic inequity and misogyny. Decades ago, she even met the woman who currently holds a double-digit polling lead in jail, when Poniatowska was interviewing political prisoners and Sheinbaum was accompanying her mother, who was also visiting inmates. Did Poniatowska find Sheinbaum extraordinary?

“I thought at the time that she was very beautiful, that she was very intelligent, and that I was happy to be next to a woman who was in the university.”

As to a woman rising to Mexico’s National Palace, she credits hard work and feminist intention.

After achieving parity in Mexico’s Congress in 2018, women banded together to press for a constitutional amendment that mandates parity in every aspect of public life — from the president's cabinet, to party candidates, to the legislature, and the courts.

“This is how I imagined (it). I worked for it. And I not only hoped it would happen. Women now have invaded territories that before they didn’t know,” Poniatowska says. “The only woman they used to speak about was the artist Frida Kahlo… And so now there are other women scientists, astronomers, women in hospitals, and women everywhere."

She once wrote of a country in which, in the 1920s, women were despised, discarded, consumed, stigmatized, and “hanged from the tree of patriarchy.” But she insists she never doubted that a woman would “take charge of a whole enormous country.”

Seated in her home against a backdrop of bright orchids and walls of bookshelves and photographs, Poniatowska recalls being inspired by her mother’s bravery in driving an ambulance in France during World War II. And she tells a story in which, under cover of darkness to escape detection by the Nazis, her mother coaxed a stray donkey into her van to transport it to a safer place.

“If you can rescue a donkey," she said, implying it meant a woman could do anything.

She says these elections—this “women’s triumph"— are personally gratifying. “It’s something that makes me happy — that makes me cry sometimes.”


Lilly Quiroz produced the audio version of this story, and Majd Al-Waheidi edited it for digital.

Claudia Sheinbaum makes history: What to know about Mexico’s 1st (JEWISH),  woman  president 

(WITH PhD ENVIRONMENTALSCIENCE)

Katie Mather
·Internet Culture Reporter
Mon, June 3, 2024

Claudia Sheinbaum addresses supporters early on Monday, June 3

. (Eduardo Verdugo/AP)

Claudia Sheinbaum was elected as Mexico’s next president on Sunday, making her the first woman in the country's 200 years of democracy to hold its highest office. She won with more than 58% of the vote against Xóchitl Gálvez — marking the first time in Mexico's history that the two main presidential candidates were women.

Sheinbaum is the successor of outgoing president Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who has been president since 2018 and who also belongs to the left-wing Morena party.

Sheinbaum’s election is significant because the government of Mexico has traditionally been male-dominated and because she will also be the first Jewish person to lead the predominantly Roman Catholic country. Her six-year term will start Oct. 1.


“For the first time in 200 years of the republic, I will become the first female president of Mexico,” Sheinbaum said on Sunday. “And as I have said on other occasions, I do not arrive alone. We all arrived, with our heroines who gave us our homeland, with our ancestors, our mothers, our daughters and our granddaughters.”

⏪ What is Claudia Sheinbaum’s background?

Sheinbaum, 61, is a Nobel Prize-winning climate scientist who received her PhD in energy engineering from the National Autonomous University of Mexico.

In 2000, she began a six-year term as the Secretary of Environment under López Obrador while he was Head of Government of Mexico City, a position similar to a mayor in the U.S. Sheinbaum also served as Head of Government of Mexico City, from 2018 to 2023 — resigning to seek the Morena party’s nomination for president.
🇲🇽 What policies will Sheinbaum continue to uphold from the previous presidency?

López Obrador, sometimes referred to as AMLO, doubled the minimum wage, invested in college scholarships and programs to keep young people out of cartels, dissolved the federal police and pushed construction projects forward to beef up infrastructure across the country.

Read more about López Obrador’s legacy from AFP.

In her victory speech, Sheinbaum said she would continue to enforce policies enacted by López Obrador, such as his social welfare programs, to address economic inequality.

“I promise to protect López Obrador’s legacy,” Sheinbaum concluded.

While López Obrador still has a high approval rating in Mexico, and despite their mentor-mentee relationship, Sheinbaum has spent the last few years toeing the line between supporting the outgoing president and differentiating herself as a separate candidate.
👮 Sheinbaum’s biggest challenge

Mexico’s high levels of violent crime will be Sheinbaum’s most immediate and biggest challenge once she takes office. During her campaign, she told supporters that she would focus on building “a strategy of addressing the causes and continue moving toward zero impunity.”

According to a report by Vision of Humanity, a research company dedicated to analyzing data on peace-making efforts around the world, organized criminal activity is the “main driver” of homicides and gun violence in the country. Such activity has been on the rise over the last few years.

As Head of Government of Mexico City, Sheinbaum lowered homicide rates by half.
🇺🇸 How has the U.S. responded to Sheinbaum’s election?

Mexico’s relationship with the U.S. was brought up several times during the election, as the numbers of migrants traveling over the border from Mexico to the U.S. have reached record highs.

But Sheinbaum has made it clear she is pro-migrant and stressed that she would not allow the U.S. to dictate how the Mexican government should handle migration.

U.S.-Mexico relations regarding U.S.-bound migrants are complicated by the possible reelection of former president Donald Trump, who has vowed to execute the largest deportation operation in history to remove undocumented migrants, should he return to the White House.

In a statement, President Biden congratulated Sheinbaum on her “historic” election.

“I look forward to working closely with President-elect Sheinbaum in the spirit of partnership and friendship that reflects the enduring bonds between our two countries,” Biden wrote. “I expressed our commitment to advancing the values and interests of both our nations to the benefit of our peoples.”

Read more about why Mexico’s election matters to the U.S. from the BBC.


Mexico elects 1st female president following deadliest election campaign in country's modern history. Here's what to know.

Claudia Sheinbaum was elected the country's first female president after a bloody election campaign that saw 37 candidates assassinated.

Kelsey Weekman
·Internet Culture Reporter
Mon, June 3, 2024 

Claudia Sheinbaum greets supporters at an election night rally in Mexico City early Monday. (Eduardo Verdugo/AP)

Claudia Sheinbaum was elected as Mexico's first female president Sunday following the deadliest election campaign in the country's modern history.

More than three dozen candidates were assassinated, including a local government candidate in central Puebla state who was killed on Friday, increasing the total number of those killed to 37 ahead of Sunday’s vote, according to data from security consultancy Integralia obtained by Reuters.

Across the country, there were more than 20,000 positions to fill and 70,000 candidates vying for the spots.
🗳️ Why is this election so important?

One of the top issues in this year’s presidential contest was violent crime. Outgoing President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has had to account for a persistently high murder rate, with his opposition arguing for change.

Security analyst David Saucedo told the Associated Press that drug cartels will likely try to force voters to support their favored candidates.

Cartels are becoming increasingly dangerous — they’re now well-armed and politically influential. According to a report translated by NPR, more than 30,000 people are murdered each year in Mexico, compared to roughly 18,500 in the U.S. in 2023.
🇺🇸 Why does it matter for the U.S.?

This Mexican election came during the same year as the U.S. presidential election, a concurrence that only happens every 12 years. It’s a tumultuous time for the relationship between the two countries. Mexico became the top trading partner for the U.S. last year, and both countries are trying to figure out how to deal with the worsening illegal drug trade.

A motorcyclist passes under a line of campaign signs in Xochimilco, Mexico, on May 31. (Yuri Cortez/AFP via Getty Images)

Another major issue for voters this year was Mexico’s migration policies on both its southern and northern borders. The National Migration Institute (INM) recorded a 77% increase in migrant arrivals from 2022 to 2023, according to CNN.

In December, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signed a bill that would allow officials in that state to detain and report people suspected of entering the U.S. illegally. The law is currently blocked by a U.S. federal court, and the current Mexican government said it will only discuss immigration issues with federal officials. Both leading presidential candidates support Mexico's stance.

🗣️ What has happened to the murdered candidates?

Jorge Huerta Cabrera, a candidate running for a council seat in the town of Izucar de Matamoros, was shot and killed at a political rally on Friday, according to the state prosecutor’s office. On Wednesday, mayoral candidate José Alfredo Cabrera Barrientos was gunned down during his closing campaign speech. He was among the 560 candidates and election officials given security guards by the government because of persistent threats.

Altogether, 37 candidates have been assassinated this election season — and that’s not counting failed assassination attempts, Reuters reported. Integralia counted 828 nonlethal attacks on political candidates during the current election campaign.

🏆 Who is Claudia Sheinbaum, Mexico's first female president?

Sheinbaum, a member of the ruling party, was widely expected to win Sunday's vote and become Mexico's first female president — a major step for a country well-known for its “macho” culture. The 61-year-old is a former Mexico City mayor and climate scientist.

Sheinbaum has long been an ally of the incumbent president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who won in a landslide in 2018. They share principles and even campaign slogans at times.

Her main opponent was former Senator Xóchitl Gálvez, who is also 61. Gálvez criticized incumbent López Obrador for his “hugs not bullets” policy of avoiding confrontation with drug cartels, who have gained control of large parts of Mexico.

Claudia Sheinbaum, left, and Xochitl Galvez, at the last presidential debate in Mexico City on May 19. (Quetzalli Nicte-Ha/Reuters)

A third contender, 38-year-old Jorge Álvarez Máynez, trailed far behind the two women in the polls. The former deputy of the Congress of the Union gained international attention in May when a stage collapsed due to heavy winds at his campaign event in San Pedro Garza García, killing nine people and injuring at least 121.

Mexico's next president will have to boost tax take to pay for social programs

Updated Mon, June 3, 2024 

Mexico's Sheinbaum wins Mexican presidency

By Anthony Esposito and Noe Torres

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Mexican president-elect Claudia Sheinbaum will face the unenviable task of making good on campaign promises to boost social programs even after an election-year spending binge by her predecessor lifted the budget deficit to its highest since the 1980s.

After winning investors' confidence with tight spending policies for most of his term, leftist President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador loosened the purse strings in his final year in office to finish flagship infrastructure projects and cover a surge in welfare programs for Mexico's poor. That boosted the deficit to 5.9% of gross domestic product in 2024, from 4.3% in prior years.

Those moves will force Sheinbaum's incoming administration to either hold the line on spending, or risk a hit to Mexico's creditworthiness.

Lopez Obrador's finance minister, Rogelio Ramirez de la O, is set to join Sheinbaum's cabinet for some time. "It gives a lot of peace of mind in terms of the economy, and that will smooth the transition," the outgoing president said.

The solution for Latin America's second-largest economy, according to economists, analysts, and former top government officials, is some form of tax overhaul which would boost government revenues – despite Mexico's next leader saying she has no plans to raise taxes.

Sheinbaum handily won Sunday's election on a platform to expand her predecessor's popular social programs, including increasing pensions for senior citizens and student scholarships.

MARKET JITTERS

In her victory speech, Sheinbaum promised to continue with Lopez Obrador's policy of "republican austerity", maintain financial and fiscal discipline, and respect the autonomy of the Bank of Mexico.

Despite those pledges, the election sent shockwaves through the market as the ruling Morena party and its coalition partners look primed for a congressional super-majority, which would make constitutional change easier and diminish checks and balances.

The final seat counts are still being tallied, but Mexico's peso fell as much as 4% against the dollar before recovering some losses and trading down 3% while Mexico's main stock index fell 3% on Monday.

In February, Lopez Obrador proposed sweeping constitutional reforms, including measures to overhaul the judiciary, electoral law, pensions, and environmental regulations.

"Some bills are perceived as leading to institutional erosion and weakening the current checks and balances, and several are not viewed as market friendly. With full control of the House, and for practical purposes likely the Senate as well, the probability that a significant part of this broad agenda is approved increased significantly," said Alberto Ramos, chief Latin America economist at Goldman Sachs.

NO FISCAL REFORM IN SIGHT

Sheinbaum, who will take office as Mexico's first woman president in October, has said she will look to cut red tape and improve the efficiency of tax collection at customs, among other proposals, but is not planning fiscal reform.

"I'm not thinking about a deep tax reform, I think there are still many opportunities for (tax) collection," Sheinbaum said days prior to the election at a televised forum.

Just the cost of pensions, servicing public debt and federal government transfers to support Mexican states accounted for more than half of the country's 9.07 trillion pesos ($535 billion) budget this year, while indebted state oil firm Pemex is no longer the cash cow it was for previous Mexican governments.

"The challenge is big," said former finance minister Ernesto Cordero. "If they want to finance their proposals and their way of seeing the country, they need to think about how they are going to do it."

Still, the possibility of a super majority could make the politically unpalatable changes needed to boost tax take easier to push through.

PRESSURED FROM ALL SIDES

With Mexico's public finances pressured from all sides and the current avenues for boosting much-needed tax take drying up, experts suggest changing the inefficient way properties and cars are taxed, tweaks to taxes on corporate profits, "green taxes," and royalties on Pemex.

"The idea of tax reform is a debate we should have," said political analyst Fernando Dworak. "Everyone is talking about what they are going to do, but nobody mentions how they are going to pay for it."

Neither does it look like economic growth will help plug any gap, with the Bank of Mexico projecting a lackluster 1.5% rise in GDP for next year.

The last fiscal reform dates back a decade, when former President Enrique Pena Nieto hiked taxes for the highest earners and new levies were imposed on soft drinks, junk food, and financial market profits.

During his administration Lopez Obrador managed to increase tax revenue by clamping down on evasion and forcing big corporations to settle tax disputes worth billions of dollars. That brought a 48% rise in tax revenue in nominal terms from 2018 through 2023, but experts warn it is not a repeatable policy.

"Six years ago there was room for savings on the spending side and improvements in the state's ability to collect taxes," said former Bank of Mexico deputy governor Gerardo Esquivel last month at a roundtable hosted by the National Autonomous University of Mexico.

Now, Esquivel added, the new president will have to find different solutions to a worsening budget conundrum.

Mexico's tax take still lags far behind its peers, amounting to only 16.9% of GDP in 2022, far below the 34% average for member nations of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, of which Mexico is a member. Even more striking, Mexico was below the average of 21.5% among Latin America countries.

Political scientist Dworak cautioned that without the means to pay for an expansion of social program, the president-elect's promises are wishful thinking, something akin to "letters to Santa Claus."

($1 = 16.9636 Mexican pesos)

(Reporting by Anthony Esposito and Noe Torres; Editing by Christian Plumb, Lincoln Feast and Alistair Bell)

Mexico's first female president breaks political glass ceiling

Will Grant - Mexico and Central America correspondent
BBC

Mon, June 3, 2024 

Claudia Sheinbaum will be Mexico's first female president [Reuters]


From the moment former Mayor of Mexico City Claudia Sheinbaum threw her hat in the ring for the presidency, the result was rarely in doubt.

Throughout the long and often gruelling campaign, as she criss-crossed the nation on commercial flights, her double-digit lead in the polls would have reassured her that she was on track to make history.

She has now done so, becoming Mexico’s first woman president by a huge margin.

It is a watershed moment both for Mexico and her personally. She has already served as Mexico City’s first female mayor. Now, in a few months, she will occupy the National Palace, succeeding her mentor, outgoing President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, known by his initials, Amlo.

No matter what else happens in her political career or where her six years in power lead her, she will always be the woman who managed to break the glass ceiling in Mexican politics. Given the country’s deeply ingrained patriarchy and entrenched machismo, that is no small feat.

Yet once the campaign leaflets are binned and the billboards bearing her face taken down, Mexicans could be forgiven for wondering exactly what kind of president she will be. In a campaign so full of words and speeches, there was precious little policy detail and few specifics about governance.

Outgoing President Andrés Manuel López Obrador is a close ally of Ms Sheinbaum [Getty Images]

On the stump, she often repeated her basic premise: that she would build the "second floor" of the "Fourth Transformation" – that is, the political project of her ally, Mr López Obrador.

President López Obrador and his supporters call it the "Fourth Transformation" or "4T" because they put his movement on a par with three transformative moments in Mexican history: Independence in 1810, the Reform War (and separation of church and state) of 1858 and the Mexican Revolution in 1910.

Unsurprisingly, opponents say Mr López Obrador and, by extension, Ms Sheinbaum have delusions of grandeur promoting such a title. But the 4T has become shorthand for a social agenda of universal pensions, student grants and family stipends which have been hugely popular across Mexico. The programme has lifted an estimated five million people from poverty throughout the country, although there is still widespread deprivation in many regions.

“The essence of this transformation is to separate economic power from political power,” she told the BBC in an interview in the eastern state of Veracruz. "Economic power has its path, but government must be directed towards the poor in Mexico."

President López Obrador laid the foundations and built the first floor of the project, she said. "Now, we are going to build on the changes he made to the country."

"It means more rights, a welfare state, education, health, access to housing, and that a living wage is a right, not a privilege," she added. "That is the difference between neoliberalism and our model, which we call Mexican Humanism."

In essence, she stood on a platform of continuity, pledging to double down on President López Obrador’s agenda. Her win shows that was a proposal supported by a sizeable majority of the Mexican electorate.

Still, the accusation from her detractors, in particular the second-placed candidate, Xóchitl Gálvez, is that the 4T is mere populism. Furthermore, she suggested Ms Sheinbaum would not be her own woman and would live under her mentor’s authoritarian shadow.

Vote for Sheinbaum, get Amlo, her critics suggested.

But while some commentators in Mexico seem to expect her to slavishly follow her popular predecessor’s lead, it does not necessarily follow that she will. There are many recent examples in Latin America where a supposed disciple has confounded expectations by striking out on their own.

Ms Sheinbaum herself is dismissive of the accusation. "I will govern with the same principles as Mr López Obrador, and that’s a good thing for Mexicans," she told the BBC.

An urbane technocrat from a well-heeled Jewish family, whose maternal grandparents fled the Holocaust, she cuts a very different figure to Amlo. Their rhetorical styles are far apart. He hammers his points home with a flourish, enthralling his base, while she tends to be more measured and clipped.

She speaks fluent English, having completed her doctoral thesis in California. Before entering politics, she was an accomplished environmental scientist who served on the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

Accordingly, she is likely to be more comfortable on the world stage than her predecessor, whose success partly stems from his direct connection with ordinary people, particularly in indigenous regions and his home state of Tabasco.

For his part, Mr López Obrador insists he has no intention of meddling in her administration. He is looking forward to retirement at his ranch in the southern state of Chiapas, he claims.

Still, however their relationship evolves once he leaves office, most people want to see a marked improvement from Ms Sheinbaum in one key arena: security.

From the launch of her campaign to her victory party - both of which were held in Mexico City’s main plaza, the Zócalo - even her most ardent supporters say they want to see more done to tackle violent crime in the drug-violence ravaged nation.

Drug-fuelled violence is a huge problem in Mexico [Getty Images]

Ms Sheinbaum says she hopes to reduce the murder rate from 23.3 homicides for every 100,000 residents to about 19.4 per 100,000 by 2027. That would put Mexico on par with Brazil.

She points to her term as Mexico City mayor, during which statistics suggest she oversaw a 50% reduction in the murder rate in the capital.

However, an academic who worked as a security adviser to her campaign said her team acknowledged that strategies which worked for running a city might simply not apply at the national level.

As if any reminder were needed of how high the stakes are, this was the most violent election in modern Mexican history.

In the final moments of his campaign for mayor of the tiny community of Coyuca de Benítez, Alfredo Cabrera was shaking hands with his supporters as he approached the stage to deliver his closing speech. Suddenly, a gunman appeared from behind him and shot the opposition candidate in the back of the head, killing him instantly.

As the crowd fled in sheer panic, some 15 shots rang out. The gunman was killed at the scene by the security forces.

Cabrera was the last of dozens of candidates to be murdered in the campaign. His death was a bloody, terrifying end to this most brutal of votes. As he was lying in a pool of blood in western Mexico, Claudia Sheinbaum was on stage in Mexico City urging her supporters to "make history".

That step is over. Now, to bring drug cartel violence under control, she must succeed where the men who went before her have failed.

Mexico's Sheinbaum wins landslide to become country's first woman president

Updated Mon, June 3, 2024 


By Kylie Madry and Valentine Hilaire

MEXICO CITY -Claudia Sheinbaum won a landslide victory to become Mexico's first female president, inheriting the project of her mentor and outgoing leader Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador whose popularity among the poor helped drive her triumph.

Sheinbaum, a climate scientist and former mayor of Mexico City, won the presidency with between 58.3% and 60.7% of the vote, according to a rapid sample count by Mexico's electoral authority. That is set to be the highest vote percentage in Mexico's democratic history.

The ruling coalition was also on track for a possible two-thirds super majority in both houses of Congress, which would allow the coalition to pass constitutional reforms without opposition support, according to the range of results given by the electoral authority.

Opposition candidate Xochitl Galvez conceded defeat after preliminary results showed her taking between 26.6% and 28.6% of the vote.

"For the first time in the 200 years of the republic I will become the first woman president of Mexico," Sheinbaum told supporters to loud cheers of "president, president".

Victory for Sheinbaum is a major step for Mexico, a country known for its macho culture and home to the world's second biggest Roman Catholic population, which for years pushed more traditional values and roles for women.

Sheinbaum is the first woman to win a general election in the United States, Mexico or Canada.

"I never imagined that one day I would vote for a woman," said 87-year-old Edelmira Montiel, a Sheinbaum supporter in Mexico's smallest state Tlaxcala.

"Before we couldn't even vote, and when you could, it was to vote for the person your husband told you to vote for. Thank God that has changed and I get to live it," Montiel added.

Sheinbaum has a complicated path ahead. She must balance promises to increase popular welfare policies while inheriting a hefty budget deficit and low economic growth.

After preliminary results were announced, she told supporters her government would be fiscally responsible and respect the autonomy of the central bank.

She has vowed to improve security but has given few details and the election, the most violent in Mexico's modern history with 38 candidates murdered, has reinforced massive security problems. Many analysts say organized crime groups expanded and deepened their influence during Lopez Obrador's term.

Sunday's vote was also marred by the killing of two people at polling stations in Puebla state. More people have been killed - over 185,000 - during the mandate of Lopez Obrador than during any other administration in Mexico's modern history, although the homicide rate has been inching down.

"Unless she commits to making a game-changing level of investment in improving policing and reducing impunity, Sheinbaum will likely struggle to achieve a significant improvement in overall levels of security," said Nathaniel Parish Flannery, an independent Latin America political risk analyst.

The ruling MORENA party also won the Mexico City mayorship race, one of the country's most important posts, according preliminary results.

U.S. RELATIONS

Among the new president's challenges will be tense negotiations with the United States over the huge flows of U.S.-bound migrants crossing Mexico and security cooperation over drug trafficking at a time when the U.S. fentanyl epidemic rages.

Mexican officials expect these negotiations to be more difficult if the U.S. presidency is won by Donald Trump in November. Trump has vowed to impose 100% tariffs on Chinese cars made in Mexico and said he would mobilize special forces to fight the cartels.

At home, the next president will be tasked with addressing electricity and water shortages and luring manufacturers to relocate as part of the nearshoring trend, in which companies move supply chains closer to their main markets.

Sheinbaum will also have to wrestle with what to do with Pemex, the state oil giant that has seen production decline for two decades and is drowning in debt.

"It cannot just be that there is an endless pit where you put public money in and the company is never profitable," said Alberto Ramos, chief Latin America economist at Goldman Sachs. "They have to rethink the business model of Pemex."

Lopez Obrador doubled the minimum wage, reduced poverty and oversaw a strengthening peso and low levels of unemployment - successes that made him incredibly popular.

Sheinbaum has promised to expand welfare programs, but it will not be easy with Mexico on track for a large deficit this year and sluggish GDP growth of just 1.5% expected by the central bank in 2025.

Lopez Obrador has loomed over the campaign, seeking to turn the vote into a referendum on his political agenda. Sheinbaum has rejected opposition claims that she would be a "puppet" of Lopez Obrador, though she has pledged to continue many of his policies including those that have helped Mexico's poorest.

In her victory speech, Sheinbaum thanked Lopez Obrador as "a unique person who has transformed our country for the better".

But political analyst Viri Rios said she thought sexism was behind criticism that Sheinbaum was going to be a puppet of the outgoing leader.

"It's unbelievable that people cannot believe she's going to be making her own decisions, and I think that's got a lot to do with the fact that she's female," she said.

(Reporting by Lizbeth Diaz, Sarah Kinosian, Ana Isabel Martinez, Noe Torres, Stefanie Eschenbacher, Diego Ore, Anthony Esposito, Brendan O'Boyle, Laura Gottesdiener; Writing by Cassandra Garrison, Brendan O'Boyle, Drazen Jorgic; Editing by Stephen Eisenhammer, Lisa Shumaker, Will Dunham, Nick Zieminski, Diane Craft, Lincoln Feast and Alex Richardson)

Mexico's Sheinbaum secures landslide presidential election win

Reuters
Updated Mon, June 3, 2024

Sheinbaum wins Mexico's presidential election

LONDON (Reuters) -Claudia Sheinbaum has won a landslide victory to become Mexico's first female president, inheriting the project of her mentor and outgoing leader Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, whose popularity among the poor helped drive her triumph.

The ruling coalition was also on track for a possible two-thirds super majority in both houses of Congress, which would allow the coalition to pass constitutional reforms without opposition support.

Below is the reaction of analysts to the latest news:

JACOBO RODRIGUEZ, FINANCIAL ANALYST, ROGA CAPITAL

"It was precisely one of the scenarios that investors did not like (...) The prevailing mood is nervousness, now that Morena and Sheinbaum have an open letter to propose important constitutional changes. Even the president himself has mentioned that before leaving, he may propose a couple of important reforms, so that makes the markets a little nervous."

"Right now in the short term, it is an overreaction from the markets that always occurs in the face of adverse scenarios - we should not see more falls, but the reality is that as long as nervousness prevails, the fall may extend. What would we expect? That the president-elect comes out to give some speeches to reassure the market, that would help to calm the nervousness."

MARCO OVIEDO, SENIOR STRATEGIST FOR LATIN AMERICA, XP INVESTMENTS

"It is being confirmed that Morena will probably have control of Congress and the Chamber of Deputies, while the Senate is yet to be confirmed. (...) Once this is confirmed, I think we will see a little more pressure on the peso and we will see what happens next, because we will have to see what the president's plan will be, what the agenda will be and what Lopez Obrador's influence will be."

"[Lopez Obrador] has his agenda very clear. He sent a set of reforms in February that are radical and that is what the market is worried about."

"Given the magnitude of the victory, it is clear that this is as the president himself has said - that it is a referendum, it is a 'you are doing well, follow him', so there is no reason why Claudia has to change course."

"I believe that the peso will continue to reflect these risks to the extent that it is confirmed that Claudia will continue down this path (...) We will have to see how everything evolves, but the market is not liking it."

"It remains to be seen what kind of team, cabinet and role Lopez Obrador will be playing in these months, but I believe - in the short term - that it could go to 19."

"Lopez Obrador has become very empowered after this, it is a brutal empowerment."

ADRIAN E HUERTA, STRATEGIST, JPMORGAN

"Sheinbaum’s acceptance speech was directed towards all Mexicans, and sought to calm down markets by stressing that her administration will guarantee an autonomous central bank, keep the division between economic and political powers, abide by legality and preserve a disciplined fiscal stance. She also mentioned that it would boost private investment, both national and foreign."

JIMENA BLANCO, CHIEF ANALYST, VERISK MAPLECROFT

"The question we now have is nobody really knows what kind of Sheinbaum they're going to get once she becomes president. She is extremely close to Lopez Obrador, but will she remain that close? Or will she pursue her own agenda? And if she does, she obviously has an interest and also a lot of experience with the energy industry, and maybe the changes we see are not as drastic as we would have seen under Lopez Obrador."

"Before the election, everybody had priced in a continuation of similar policies with similar institutional restraints on the executive."

ANDRES ABADIA, CHIEF LATAM ECONOMIST, PANTHEON MACROECONOMICS

"Sheinbaum's victory is outstanding, granting her a robust mandate to tackle Mexico's key challenges. While her victory was widely anticipated by the markets, which should take the result relatively well, the potential qualified majority could open the door for (her party) Morena to increase concentration of power and pose a threat to institutional checks and balances."

"So far, though, the president-elect has struck a more conciliatory tone, promising to build on the "advances" of the outgoing administration while adopting a more investor-friendly approach. In the near term, the main driver for Mexican assets will likely be external conditions, particularly the actions of the Federal Reserve, rather than domestic politics."

PIOTR MATYS, SENIOR FX ANALYST, IN TOUCH CAPITAL MARKETS

"The peso is underperforming amid seemingly growing concerns amongst investors that by securing supermajority in the lower house the governing coalition could be tempted to implement non-market-friendly policies."

JASON TUVEY, DEPUTY CHIEF EMERGING MARKETS ECONOMIST, CAPITAL ECONOMICS

"Policy continuity will largely prevail under a Sheinbaum government, particularly when it comes welfare policy. In a speech shortly after the preliminary results were announced, Dr. Sheinbaum stated that her government will 'dedicate public funds to continue President Lopez Obrador’s social programmes'. But she clearly has one eye on reassuring investors who are concerned about the health of Mexico’s public finances, stating that 'our government will be austere… and fiscally responsible'.

"One key area of difference with the Amlo (Lopez Obrador) administration is likely to be energy policy. While Dr. Sheinbaum said that she will promote 'energy sovereignty', perhaps a nod to (for now) continuing to provide support for the state oil company Pemex, her environment-friendly credentials shone through as she called for a focus on renewable energy."

HASNAIN MALIK, STRATEGY & HEAD OF EQUITY RESEARCH, TELLIMER

"Should Sheinbaum's Morena party and its allies secure a two-thirds majority in the lower house of congress and a majority in the upper house... then the divisive constitutional reform agenda, laid out by Lopez Obrador in February 2024 (eg changes to pensions, wages, supreme court) comes sharply into focus and creates downside risk for Mexico asset prices - because they risk sparking large scale protests and, if implemented, they risk undermining the strength of institutions."

CHRIS TURNER, GLOBAL HEAD OF MARKETS, ING

"The question is whether the Morena party has done so well that it could command a super-majority and try to pursue market non-friendly policies of constitutional reform."

(Reporting by Karin Strohecker, Marc Jones, Medha Singh, Bansari Mayur Kamdar and Stéphanie Hamel; Editing by Alex Richardson)


Mexico's Crypto Stance Unlikely to Change as Ruling Morena Party's Claudia Sheinbaum Elected President

Amitoj Singh

COIN DESK
Mon, June 3, 2024


Claudia Sheinbaum is the first woman to be elected the president of Mexico.

Sheinbaum's party has not proposed a comprehensive policy for crypto, but has imposed a 20% tax on crypto gains and reflected a focus on regulating blockchain.

Mexico City’s former mayor, Claudia Sheinbaum, was elected president of Mexico to become the first woman to hold that position, according to multiple reports including The New York Times.

The result signals the probable continuation of Mexico's crypto policy because Sheinbaum is from the ruling Morena party. Her predecessor, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, could not run again under the constitution. Sheinbaum has aligned herself with Obrador's policies, though there was little to no mention of crypto in Mexico's biggest election to date.

The Morena party has not proposed any comprehensive legislation for the crypto sector, though it has imposed a 20% tax on crypto gains. Other policies and regulations require cryptocurrency exchanges to be registered under global requirements for anti-money laundering and terror financing. The party has also reflected a focus on regulating blockchain to make the technology and ecosystem more secure.

It's too early to say whether recent crypto-related developments in the U.S., which happened as Mexico's election campaigns unfolded, will encourage the Morena party to reconsider its keep-it-in-the-shadows stand on crypto policy. Mexico is the largest market for remittances from the U.S., making crypto a potential option for Mexicans.

In the past few weeks, a major crypto bill has cleared one of the chambers of the U.S. Congress for the first time; former President Donald Trump – the presumptive Republican presidential election nominee – not only started accepting donations in crypto, but also said that the U.S. must be the global leader in crypto; and President Biden's re-election campaign has reportedly begun reaching out to crypto industry participants for guidance on crypto community and policy.‘ The Securities and Exchange Commission is also expected to greenlight the launch of spot ether exchange-traded funds.

Sheinbaum has said she's confident of having a good relationship with whoever comes to power in 2024.

Read More: In Mexico’s Biggest Election Yet, Crypto Remains on the Sidelines

Mexico votes in election certain to bring country’s first female president

Thomas Graham in Mexico City
Sun, June 2, 2024 

Presidential candidate of the ruling Morena party Claudia Sheinbaum at a rally in Mexico City on 1 March.Photograph: Luis Cortés/Reuters

Mexican voters go to the polls on Sunday in an election that seems certain to deliver the country’s first female president – and may also give her party enough power in congress to change the constitution and rewire the democracy of Latin America’s second-largest economy.

Frontrunner Claudia Sheinbaum, a 61-year-old climate scientist and former mayor of Mexico City, has vowed to continue the policies of her populist predecessor, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who founded the Morena party and forged a bond with voters who had become disenchanted with democracy.

Morena combines progressive and conservative policies in an unorthodox platform pulled together by the charisma of López Obrador and a discourse fixed on Mexico’s gaping inequality.

It has proved a winning formula – and looks set to propel Sheinbaum to victory over Xóchitl Gálvez, the leading opposition candidate.

Not just the presidency, but 20,000 other posts are up for grabs in Mexico’s biggest election ever.

Related: Amlo promised to transform Mexico, but he leaves it much the same

It takes place against a backdrop of violence and deepening criminal control of swaths of the country. Mexico has one of the highest homicide rates in Latin America and hundreds of organised crime groups, ranging from the small and local up to those with international presence and the kind of firepower typically reserved for armies.

These groups have diversified from drug to gun and migrant trafficking, and have penetrated local businesses and supply chains, from tortilla stands to avocado farms.

This year’s elections have been the most violent in Mexican history, with more than 30 candidates murdered and hundreds more dropping out as criminal groups vie to install friendly leaders.

On Wednesday, the final day of the campaign, a hired killer filmed himself shooting the opposition mayoral candidate José Alfredo Cabrera in the town of Coyuca de Benítez, Guerrero, before being shot dead by bodyguards.

“There is much violence – perhaps not in Mexico City, but in the rest of the country,” said Vanessa Romero, a political analyst.

Tens of thousands of supporters of Morena packed the Zócalo, Mexico City’s main square, on Wednesday for the final event of Sheinbaum’s campaign.

But the mood is less excited than in 2018, when López Obrador broke the grip that Mexico’s traditional parties had held on the presidency, winning by a landslide and promising to transform a country racked by inequality, corruption and violence.

Outside a barbershop in Benito Juárez, a wealthy neighbourhood in Mexico City, Salim said he voted for Morena in 2018 but wouldn’t this time.

“What changed? Nothing,” said Salim. “They’re the same as the others. Only the speeches are different.”

Rocío, who was visiting from the Yucatán city of Mérida, which is governed by the conservative Pan party, took a more understanding view.

“Mexico’s always had corruption,” she said. “But now it has [big infrastructure projects] like the Mayan Train – that’s a difference.”

Yet Morena’s appeal is better understood from places such as Maconí, a small community in the state of Querétaro that gets water just a few hours a week.

“We’re with Morena, and Morena is with us,” said Don José, a 66-year old man who was a migrant worker in the US for many years. “This country is changing, and the scoundrels that ruled for decades are on the way out. We would die of thirst before they paid attention to us.”

Related: ‘It’s become a battleground’: Mexico’s local candidates face deadly violence

Over the last three months, Sheinbaum has crisscrossed the country in an effort to rally such voters – not just to assure Morena retains the presidency, but to win it a level of political power not seen since Mexico became a democracy in 2000.

Morena and its allies already control a simple majority in both houses of congress and two-thirds of the governorships in Mexico’s 32 states.

The election could, in theory, gain it three more governorships on Sunday – though many of the races are too close to call, and the opposition are hopeful of wresting Mexico City from Morena’s control.

But if Scheinbaum’s party emerges with a two-thirds supermajority in congress, it would be able to amend the constitution at will.

Polling suggests it is unlikely. But Morena already has a package of reforms in mind that includes allowing supreme court justices to be elected by popular vote, which could give it control over the country’s top court.

This has led some to sound the alarm.

“Why do we have to mobilise? Because Claudia is a danger to democracy,” said Gálvez, the opposition candidate.

“I think the risk is being exaggerated for electoral reasons,” said Romero, who points out that Morena is proposing a democracy with more popular participation. “It’s not about democracy versus authoritarianism. It’s about one vision of democracy versus another.”

Others are more concerned.

“Mexico is moving to what some in Morena call ‘hegemonic democracy’, which by their definition isn’t exactly a representative liberal democracy, but nor is it authoritarian,” said Humberto Beck, a historian. “It’s something else beyond that dichotomy, which is lent legitimacy by popular support.

“I think this is an announcement of democratic regression,” added Beck.

North of the border, the Biden administration has been noticeably quiet about López Obrador’s attacks on Mexico’s institutions throughout his term, apparently prioritising cooperation on fentanyl trafficking and migration as it approaches its own election later this year.