By Kelly Sloan | Contributing Columnist, Rocky Mountain Voice
You may have missed it, but at the beginning of this month Mexico elected a new President. By which to say they elected an extension of their previous one.
Claudia Sheinbaum, former mayor of Mexico City, won the election in what can only be described as a landslide for the ruling left-wing Morena Party. Sheinbaum happens to be Mexico’s first female President (it’s first Jewish one too, though it seems she likes to keep her Jewishness rather suppressed unless politically convenient.) More importantly, she is a protégé of her predecessor, Andrés Manuel López Obrador known somewhat affectionately as “AMLO”. Both are socialists, after a fashion, and it is not expected that President Sheinbaum will stray much from the policies of AMLO.
So what will this mean for Mexico? Well, if it’s any indication, Mexican stock markets tanked the day after her election, down almost 6%, and the Peso took a 4% hit the same day. Investors are reportedly rather nervous, understandably. It is expected that with their new mandate, Morena will push through some major leftist constitutional changes, designed to eliminate some of the checks and balances currently in place and cement Morena’s hold on the reigns of power.
Sheinbaum herself is something of a technocrat, a highly educated engineer who took a conciliatory tone after her election, and claims to want to increase investment into her country. But she is an acolyte of AMLO, and for all her education and claims of pragmatism, appears to be as much of a populist left wing ideologue as her mentor. Sheinbaum is a long-time climate activist, having once served a term on the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), and seems quite intent on pursuing an aggressive climate-change agenda. She faces a practical conundrum though – it’s one thing for wealthy countries to risk their economies by pursuing chimerical climate change policies, like reducing fossil fuel usage and emissions; it’s quite another thing for poor countries to try and do so. Mexico is not a wealthy country, and needs it’s domestic, largely state-run oil and gas industry. It will be interesting to see how President Sheinbaum squares that particular circle.
How will all this impact the United States? Well, simply owing to geographical proximity, what happens in Mexico tends to have consequences on the U.S. In terms of immediate practical issues these would be a) illegal immigration, and b) drugs. Neither of these issues would appear poised to improve under a Sheinbaum regime. Wealthy countries tend not to hemorrhage their own citizens, and Mexico is not likely to become much wealthier under the policies of the new President. As for drugs, that problem became worse under AMLO, with revelations that the former President was tight with the Sinaloa cartel, which in turn maintains close ties to the Chinese, and as such is the leading producer of illicit fentanyl. The re-establishment of some semblance of order is indeed one of the new president’s most pressing challenges, and it remains unclear if she has the ability – or the will – to do so.
While Mexicans seem content to continue down their leftist course, it is a different story in Europe. Contrast Mexico’s elections with those held for the European Parliament last week, which were swept by right-leaning parties. Ruling left-leaning parties throughout the continent did not fare well, and Germany’s Green Party in particular was soundly routed. This tells us that the priorities of most Europeans are not what the progressive ruling class wishes them to be, at least not any longer. Climate change, a few short years ago, was seen as a main priority, existential even. Then came the Covid-19 pandemic, inflation, war, and an energy crisis; reality thereafter set in and refocused priorities, propelling economic prudence to the forefront. Latitudinarian policies on immigration, which have caused all sorts of troubles for several European nations, also concentrated voters’ minds to more immediate and concrete issues.
The shockwave was felt just as keenly in France, where Marie Le Pen’s National Rally party swept the elections there, prompting French President Emmanuel Macron to immediately – as in, while votes were yet being tallied – to dissolve the French National Assembly and call a snap election, a calculated risk to try and dump the wind from National Rally’s sails before the Presidential elections in 2027.
It is impossible, of course, to say if this is the initiation of a major change in political direction in Europe; Labour is still expected to win the election in the UK this summer, and a left-wing coalition still retains the balance of power at the EU. But it does suggest that a large and growing number of Europeans are unhappy with the direction the left has taken them, and suggests that Europe still retains a spark of the intellectual and spiritual vitality that periodically gives hope to a darkening world, even as it fades in other corners.
Editor’s note: Opinions expressed in commentary pieces are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the management of the Rocky Mountain Voice, but even so we support the constitutional right of the author to express those opinions.