Mexico’s fourth transformation

Austreberta Casales turns up to our meeting with three mobile phones. A few months ago, she and her son opened a mobile phone repair service and accessories business. Today they had to close down their shop as sales were going badly and they couldn't pay the rent. But she is not discouraged. She says she'll continue to exchange mobile phone cases, batteries and displays, with or without a shop.

Aged 64, Austreberta is bursting with energy. For decades, she was an administrative employee in the music industry, back when selling CDs still earned money. She gave up the job because of health problems, but without a pension. These days, she still has to make ends meet. She has asked around and is currently thinking of opening a launderette.

It is a hot afternoon in Colonia Guerrero, in the centre of the capital. The working-class neighbourhood also has a reputation for violence. Here there are street markets and tianguis, or mobile traders. It's loud: cars, motorbikes, voices and music can be heard everywhere. Behind every doorway, entire worlds are hidden, opening up onto courtyards which have up to twenty buildings grouped around them.

Austreberta lives here, her door leads out onto a dead-end street where everyone knows who is coming and going. She puts her keys on the table, sits down and strokes her dog, Cristal. Princesa, Padme and Güera, the three puppies, come running over. Her lap barely has enough room for all of them, but Doña Austre smiles happily between her sand-coloured Chihuahuas. She was taken by surprise by the López Obrador government, she says. She thinks the universal pension for older people is a good plan, even though she does not yet receive it herself. “Before, we were pretty helpless,” she explains. She would like to see this policy continued. 

The new President Claudia Sheinbaum has announced a pension for women between 60 and 64. I think that's great because we give everything for our children and end up with nothing [...].  It's great help, because we older people are dependent on our children, now we at least get something to eat when we're elderly. We can't find work any more either. There are no jobs for older people. The scholarships for students are an incentive to get a degree or go to school. Many don't do this because they lack school supplies. Now there will be fewer dropouts and we can continue to expand education: we need educated people who will work to change the country.

Austreberta will soon be 65, and she's really looking forward to it because she can then apply for her pension. The support means more to her than just money: it is a signal that people want to provide for the elderly. Because “sometimes we don't feel life anymore, we're just at home. We only live for a long life but can no longer move. With the money I get, I'll go to the cinema, do something for myself [...]. We have the right to a quiet life and not to have to beg our children for help.”

Raúl Ramírez Florido is 65 years old, he started working when he was 14. He has been selling food at Coyoacán market for around forty years now: cheese, eggs, tostadas, beans, grains, tinned food, milk, pasta, coffee and much more, from seven in the morning to seven in the evening, six days a week. He has a break on Wednesdays. It’s an exhausting life.

Raúl seems well informed and comments on the political situation in Mexico and abroad for his customers. ‘What do you think about Javier Milei’s victory?’ he asks me after the elections in Argentina. As far as Mexican current affairs are concerned, he is particularly interested in the critical news about López Obrador’s government. He doesn’t agree with 4T at all.

How do you view the situation in Mexico right now? Contradictory. Economically, the country is more or less stable, but there is strong social polarisation and no longer any common ground. The president has taken action against this. But he has also used the social programmes to stay in office; I don’t think that’s right, they're distributed according to the watering can principle [...], in the case of pupils it doesn’t make sense to me that they just get a scholarship from kindergarten to senior school, most of them don’t need it and don’t deserve it. There are children who do everything they can to learn and others who don’t. I think a scholarship has to be a reward for effort or a social help.

What do you mean with polarisation? The president has said: ‘Anyone who is not for me is against me.’ Polarisation is pronounced and people are being very, very stupid. He has insulted the students, the middle class and also the intellectuals. He has cut programmes, abolished trust funds, he has abolished many things that directly affect the intellectuals, the students and the middle class and yet many of them voted for him!

Raúl talks himself into a rage while giving his take on López Obrador, but he also enjoys the discussion. “Today he comes up with the idea that twenty reforms would be good, and everyone is already talking about reforms! No! Why is he setting the agenda? Ignore him, and that’s that.” Raúl is of the opinion that the government is “the same or worse” than the previous one. As an example, he mentions the construction of the airport in Texcoco, a project by former President Enrique Peña Nieto, which Obrador cancelled on the grounds that corruption had occurred and public money had been wasted. In return, Raúl mentions the recent expansion of the airport in Santa Lucía, which Obrador decided on, but where there were also allegations of corruption. Raúl says that “the same companies are still working for the government, in plain language: the mafia of the powerful, as López Obrador calls them, are still working with him and for him”.

Raúl is also not particularly enthusiastic about Claudia Sheinbaum, the first woman to hold the office of president. He believes that López Obrador will continue to dictate policy in this way and “immortalise himself in power through”. Then some more customers arrive and Raúl has no time to talk; he gets back to work.

Angélica Jazmín Navarro Arroyo, 36 years old, small, looks fragile. She rides her motorbike through the chaotic metropolis of Mexico City. “It's not that big, just 150 cubic centimetres,” she says with a laugh, playing down her bravery. She is a photographer with a degree in communication, works in public administration and designs strategies to protect women from violence. A difficult task in a country where machismo, inequality in the world of work and ten femicides a day are considered normal.

Angie has very personal experience of this issue herself. Her father killed her mother. Two aunts shared the care of the younger siblings and she, the eldest, was left alone in the capital. She was a teenager then. She tells her story openly, without victimising herself. She speaks calmly about what happened to her. She does not hide her admiration for López Obrador either: “He is someone who has been harmed a lot, who has often been cheated, and so he has become the face of all those who have had similar things done to them.”

She emphasises that when the pandemic hit the country, the president “had to improvise, and in my view he did a very good job and did not put the country in debt’. She emphasises the progress made without losing sight of reality: ‘You can't put right in six years what has gone wrong in 36 years of neoliberalism, or in 200 years of exploitative rule.”

Angie is clearly speaking from her own worst experience: “My mother was murdered when I was 16 years old. Coming of age on my own, looking for a job and going back to school was hard. I was invisible.” But it was people from Obrador's government who helped Angie: “They told me they had work for me.” They got to know Angélica, then an unemployed activist, at an event. And they offered her a job in public administration.

What do you think of the social programmes? They can achieve a lot. I had to work during my studies. That was very difficult [...]. After my mother was murdered, my father went to prison. So I was alone. Sometimes I had to calculate: “I can afford a tin of tuna, but I have an exam, so I'll eat it in the afternoon so I can get through the exam better.” That was my reality. I had a scholarship for excellence and I used it to buy the tuna. I had to pay the rent from my wages [...]. I see [scholarships] as an investment in young people so that they don't have to go hungry. And if you want to look at it as an expense, it's better to spend money on that than on certain eccentric escapades that Mexico has experienced under previous governments.

Angélica is happy with her current predicament and that she is able to experience this historic moment. With regard to 4T, she talks about an uncertain outcome of all the changes. She hopes that the new president will communicate clearly and directly with citizens - and: “I would like her to reform the way we work.” In other words, a reduction in the working week from the current 48 to forty hours, another point envisaged as part of 4T.

What does it mean for you and your country to have a woman as president for the first time? I think it sheds new light on this macho dynamic that we continue to see at home, in the workplace and on the streets. As president, when she attends a conference, explains a decree or travels around the country, Mexico will face a big challenge to focus on her work, not what she's wearing. She was once criticised for a trouser hem that was fastened with a clip [...].

We have had a cabinet with equal representation since 2018 and ten female governors, so we already have women in positions of power. However, they often had to adopt a masculine attitude in order to assert themselves, they had to become a bit of a man to be taken seriously. I think the ‘Doctora Claudia’ will have a similar experience. You can't expect her to be gentle just yet. First of all, we need a symbol, and the very fact that she is sitting in the president's chair as a woman is a strong symbol. The first step has been taken.