“Wanting to reform everything is the same thing as wanting to destroy everything.” —Vincenzo Cuoco, 1801

In Mexico, there is an average of one murder every 15 minutes, or 95 per day. Fourteen of the 50 most violent cities in the world are located in this country, according to 2024 data from the consulting firm World Population Review. Tijuana and Acapulco top the list, with more than 110 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants. The Mexican government’s Ministry of Security and Citizen Protection reported that between 2018 and 2024, 180,000 murders occurred. This is 30,000 more than during Enrique Peña Nieto’s term, 60,000 more than under Felipe Calderón’s administration and more than double the number during Vicente Fox’s presidency. In June 2024 alone, there were 2,673 homicides. Six states account for 50% of intentional homicides: Guanajuato, Michoacán, State of Mexico, Baja California, Jalisco and Sonora.

As of September 2024, it is estimated that there are 116,000 missing persons in Mexico, though this figure has only been tracked since 2006. In 2022, there were 52,000 unidentified deceased persons and updating these figures is difficult as forensic services are insufficient. According to the National Search Commission, which is responsible for coordinating actions to locate and identify missing persons, the states of Baja California, Mexico City, State of Mexico, Jalisco, Chihuahua, Tamaulipas and Nuevo León account for 71.7% of the unidentified bodies. 

The General Law on Forced Disappearance, created in 2017, envisioned the National Forensic Data Bank, but it has yet to be implemented. These numbers represent the basis of a situation that could be worse. In 2018, a few months before López Obrador assumed the presidency, a refrigerated truck with 273 decomposing bodies was found “abandoned” in the state of Jalisco. Initially, it was thought that organized crime had left it there, but it turned out that the state government was using it because the morgue, with a maximum capacity of 200 bodies, could not hold more.

Given the Mexican government’s inability to address this issue and stop the spiral of violence, various collectives have emerged, almost all led by women, the mothers of missing persons. The “Madres Buscadoras” (Searching Mothers) are more than 60 organizations that since 2019 have found over 1,230 people in clandestine graves and 1,300 people alive in various states of the country and even in Central America. However, their activity has also become dangerous, with over ten searching mothers killed, some in front of government buildings. López Obrador openly ignored them during his government despite his promise to support them.

Neoliberal populism

During this administration, 14 social welfare programs were created. Seven of these are direct benefits, such as pensions for the elderly, scholarships for basic, middle and higher education and support for people with disabilities and single mothers. Between 2019 and 2024, the government spent 2.73 trillion pesos (about $140 billion) on these programs and according to its own data, 79% of households in the country receive at least one of these benefits. This explains why, despite severe insecurity and impunity, the ruling party didn’t face significant electoral backlash. However, it also explains why the fiscal deficit is nearly 6% of GDP, the highest in the last 35 years, data from the Bank of Mexico show.

Since 2000, the organization Article 19 has recorded the murder of 167 journalists, 47 of them during López Obrador’s term, the same number as during Peña Nieto’s presidency. The year 2022 was the worst, with 13 journalists killed. Reporters Without Borders considers Mexico one of the most dangerous and deadly countries in the world for practicing journalism. The telecommunications sector is dominated by Telmex, radio and television by Televisa, while Organización Editorial Mexicana, also known as OEM, owns 70 newspapers, 24 radio stations and 44 news websites. 

During his administration, López Obrador never appeared before Congress—except when he took office—never met with opposition leaders and ignored various groups, including the mothers of missing persons. However, the doors of the National Palace—where he resides and works—were always open to the country’s top businessmen, especially those from the aforementioned companies.

Politics without rule of law

The López Obrador administration classified all information related to its most emblematic works, such as the construction of the Felipe Ángeles Airport, the Maya Train and the Dos Bocas Refinery, under the guise of national security, with the aim of avoiding public scrutiny. This explains why Mexico ranked 126th out of 180 countries in the 2023 Transparency International index, with corruption levels similar to El Salvador, Kenya and Togo and the worst among the OECD countries. 

If the raison d’être of the state and government is, above all, to provide security to its citizens to prevent the horrors of the “state of nature,” we can say that this function has long ceased to exist in Mexico and it worsened between 2018 and 2024 under a government that promised to stop the violence with “hugs, not bullets.”

No matter from which angle it is viewed, the balance of López Obrador’s government is negative and this is the legacy that will be passed to his successor, Claudia Sheinbaum. Whatever significance people may attribute to her victory as the new head of state and government, it is overshadowed by her determination to follow López Obrador’s directives to the letter, by her lack of a personal agenda and by her voluntary submission to the whims of the leaders of the Morena party, whose only political project is to prove who is more servile to the outgoing president.

However, Mexican presidentialism has unwritten rules that have changed little and among them, two are inevitable: first, the outgoing president immediately loses power and second, for the new president to succeed, they must break with their predecessor, especially if they are from the same party. López Obrador is aware of this, which explains the pressure he has put on his party’s new legislators to fast-track approval of his reforms affecting the judiciary and autonomous bodies, so that none of these institutions can pursue him or his associates once they leave office. As the saying goes, “fear lends wings.”