Mexico’s mighty left-wing government is floundering

With Nicolás Maduro ousted and regimes in Cuba and Nicaragua flailing, the Fidel Castro-inspired left that once held sway over Latin America is fading. Yet across the southern border of the United States, a different kind of left-wing politics is not only still alive, but thriving.

Mexico’s Morena is more benign, less ideological and far younger than the Marxism-Leninism that emanated across the Caribbean in the 20th century. It has no serious rivals in Mexico. It was founded in 2011 to carry its founder, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, to the presidency. Since achieving that in 2018, the party has dominated Mexican politics. Together with its allies, it controls 24 of Mexico’s 32 states. It holds supermajorities in both legislative houses, more than two-thirds of the seats in each. It draws comparisons with the Institutional Revolutionary Party that ruled Mexico as a one-party state for seven decades until 2000.

But as Morena has become more entrenched it has looked ever less likely to rescue Mexico from its most serious problems: powerful drug gangs, corruption and a feeble economy. The party and its leaders remain popular. The question is how long that popularity can last.

Security and corruption are the immediate concerns. Claudia Sheinbaum, Mr López Obrador’s hand-picked successor, has adopted an effective strategy, pushing murder rates down for the first time in years. But Donald Trump wants results fast. He has alleged “an intolerable alliance” between drug gangs and Mexican politicians. Several Morena officials, including senators and governors, face credible accusations of narco ties. Difficult as he is, Mr Trump has given Ms Sheinbaum cover to go after corruption, but targeting her own party remains difficult.

The revamp of security and judicial institutions needed to make Mexico permanently safer and less corrupt will be expensive. That is a problem. Under Morena, Mexico has no money. Its economic growth has long lagged behind that of its neighbours in Latin America and comparable emerging economies in Asia, but the Morena years have been the most sluggish in a quarter-century. The IMF thinks the economy will grow by 1.5% in 2026, about half the Latin American average. Ms Sheinbaum’s Plan México, a flagship development strategy, is faltering: in 2025 investment reached 22% of GDP, short of the 25% target. With weak growth and little sign of a turnaround, few believe the government can maintain expansive welfare payments until the end of her term, in 2030.

These handouts underpin Morena’s popularity. Along with labour reforms, including steep rises in the minimum wage and limits on outsourcing, they lifted over 13m of Mexico’s 132m people out of poverty between 2018 and 2024. They have trebled the minimum wage over that period, to 315 pesos ($18) a day. A proposal to cut the working week from 48 to 40 hours is before Congress. But over the same period Mexico’s budget deficit grew from about 2% of GDP to a four-decade high of 5.7% in 2024. Ms Sheinbaum has promised to bring that back down to 2.5%, but has so far missed her own short-term targets.

These fiscal constraints weaken Ms Sheinbaum’s hand with Mr Trump. The economy’s growth rate depends heavily on the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), a free-trade pact, which is due to be reviewed this year. On January 13th Mr Trump called it “irrelevant”. He has correctly identified Mexico’s problems as lawlessness and corruption. But with stretched government finances on top of a saggy economy, Ms Sheinbaum cannot solve these problems quickly. If Mr Trump did ditch USMCA, it would scotch any hope of Mexico meeting his demands.

Some of the challenges Ms Sheinbaum faces in solving this conundrum stem from the nature of Morena itself. Though its platform is overtly left-wing, party membership is much looser. Discipline is weak. It took in candidates indiscriminately in its early years because it “only cared about winning, not about legacy or groundwork”, says Javier Aparicio of CIDE, a university in Mexico City. Much of its success relied on Mr López Obrador’s charisma. “The big challenge” is to keep Morena loyal to its values, says Citlalli Hernández, a founding member and now women’s minister.

Ms Sheinbaum has begun to assert herself. An anti-nepotism law passed in 2025, which barred relatives of politicians from office, was seen as a move to sideline Mr López Obrador’s allies. Still, his influence endures and her political identity remains constrained by the movement he built. Overt breaks risk weakening her hand. The implementation of the anti-nepotism law has been delayed until 2030.

Power itself is a unifying goal. Mr López Obrador curbed oversight institutions such as the electoral authority, claiming to be acting for “the people”. Morena disavows this. “We don’t intend to have absolute power,” says Ms Hernández. Patricia Mercado of Citizens’ Movement, a centre-left party that is not allied with Morena, is sceptical. “I think they want to stay in power,” she says. “Many in Morena believe only they can transform the country.”

Ms Sheinbaum certainly looks less autocratic than Mr López Obrador. But she pushed through his plan to elect Mexico’s judiciary and is working on changes to the electoral system, which include cutting public funding for political parties and a reduction of the number of seats elected through proportional representation. All this works to Morena’s advantage. “I don’t know what their motivations are,” says Lorena Becerra, a pollster. “But the result will be less democratic competition.”

Mexicans are unfazed by Morena’s dominance. Ms Sheinbaum’s approval rating is yet to fall below 70%. But cracks are starting to show. A host of scandals has left the party’s claims about anti-corruption and austerity ringing hollow. Concern over crime is rising. Ms Sheinbaum lacks Mr López Obrador’s charm. This makes problems once brushed aside—slow growth, medicine shortages, faltering schools—harder to ignore. Last year Morena lost several local elections it had expected to win. “The honeymoon is over,” says Mr Aparicio. “You have to deliver.” So far that has not been Morena’s strength. ■