Politics: The prospects for 2026

MEXICO - Report 20 Jan 2026 by Guillermo Valdés and Francisco González

2026 will be a decisive year for President Claudia Sheinbaum, who faces multiple crossroads in consolidating the Fourth Transformation (4T) while balancing internal loyalties and external pressures. Politically, the government is pushing an electoral reform aimed at achieving overrepresentation in Congress, controlling the National Electoral Institute (INE) (via removal or popular election of councilors), and drastically cutting opposition funding, with the goal of securing qualified majorities and a long-term hold on power. Delayed due to resistance from allies, the reform must be approved by June to be applied in the 2027 mid-terms (Chamber of Deputies, 17 governorships, and mayoralties). Imposing it without opposition consensus would confirm the country's democratic regression and damage its international image.

Legislatively, February-April will prioritize the electoral reform, alongside moving a recall referendum to 2027, eliminating parliamentary immunity, and reducing the workweek to 40 hours (gradually until 2030). September-December will focus on the 2027 budget, with likely higher electoral spending and deficit risks. In security, the government strategy is losing credibility following halted investigations into Morena members linked to crime (the fuel theft network, the La Barredora cartel) and the recent murder of Uruapan's mayor. Pressure from Trump after Maduro's detention—explicitly, regarding direct military intervention, and implicitly, for extraditions of politicians linked to organized crime—is cornering Sheinbaum between causing fractures in Morena and unilateral U.S. action.

This year President Sheinbaum will have to navigate between loyalty to former President AMLO, avoiding foreign intervention, renewing the USMCA, containing social discontent, and strengthening her internal position ahead of the mid-terms and the presidential succession.

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