The end of Mexico’s ‘hugs, not bullets’ paradigm: A visual history
Sheinbaum’s first three months have seen more murders and missing persons than the same period of her predecessor, López Obrador, but they have also been marked by an increase in operations, arrests, and seizures of drugs and weapons
Although Claudia Sheinbaum’s first 100 days as Mexico’s president are too short to draw definitive conclusions, they provide a basis for an initial assessment of her administration’s progress on security — one of the country’s most pressing issues. The challenge is immense, as it’s not only the staggering murder rate but also the entrenched criminal regimes in vast regions where extortion has become a normalized form of coexistence, and organized crime wields significant influence over politics and the economy.
Sheinbaum’s approach has largely maintained the narrative framework of her predecessor, Andrés Manuel López Obrador. While she has avoided grandiose slogans like his famous “hugs, not bullets,” she frequently emphasizes that addressing the root causes of violence remains central to her strategy, essentially continuing the policies of the previous administration. The notable rhetorical shift lies in her emphasis on “intelligence” and “investigation,” which she credits as the foundation of her successes during her tenure as mayor of Mexico City from 2019 to 2023.
In the initial months of Sheinbaum’s administration, notable differences from her predecessor’s approach have emerged, particularly in the number of operations conducted by security forces and the results achieved. A key factor in this shift is the appointment of Omar García Harfuch as head of the Secretariat of Security and Citizen Protection. His leadership, combined with constitutional changes that elevate his role to that of a coordinator of the national security strategy, has significantly reshaped the landscape. Additionally, the increased prominence and influence of agencies like the Secretariat under his command and peripheral bodies such as the National Intelligence Center have further defined the administration’s security agenda.
However, murders and disappearances recorded during Sheinbaum’s initial months in office have surpassed those documented during the same period of Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s presidency.
“The context of violence that Sheinbaum has inherited is more serious than that received by the former president,” argues Armando Vargas, a researcher at the think tank México Evalúa, which recently published a report on the first 100 days of the new administration, emphasizing that the president’s principal concern is “political-criminal violence,” defined as “lethal and non-lethal attacks on public officials and politicians by organized crime.”
Vargas elaborates: “Beyond attacks on officials, this type of violence is indicative of what we call the criminal regime — territories where crime sets rules at political, economic, and social levels. This represents the most extreme form of state power being annulled and replaced by criminal authority. It is the clearest symptom of the failure of López Obrador’s security policy.”
“In December, we presented an analysis of the López Obrador years, concluding that despite occasional declines and fluctuations, his six-year term was ultimately a failure,” explains the expert. “On one hand, violence increased — murders, kidnappings, extortion, and the spread of political-criminal violence. On the other hand, institutional capacities were eroded, with stagnation in the prosecutors’ offices, the prison system, and local police forces.”
The question now is whether the government’s aggressive actions in these early months will yield tangible, lasting results in the medium and long term. Do the numerous arrests and seizures indicate a real transformation on the ground? Or will this approach mirror past efforts that ultimately left conditions unchanged — or even worse?
The Felipe Calderón administration’s campaign against Los Zetas (2006–2012) offers a cautionary tale. While the group was weakened, the regions they once controlled — such as Tamaulipas’ border areas, parts of Nuevo León, Veracruz, and Michoacán — remain plagued by the kind of entrenched criminal regimes highlighted in the México Evalúa report.
A critical question also looms over how these arrests will translate into judicial proceedings and convictions. By now, it is well known that Mexico’s prosecutorial system has limited capacity to deliver justice. Impunity rates for both common and federal crimes consistently exceed 90%.
“The new strategy lacks a comprehensive approach to violence,” warns Vargas. “It focuses heavily on homicidal violence, especially on the conflict in Sinaloa [due to the violence from the warring factions of the Sinaloa Cartel], while overlooking other critical forms of violence, such as extortion. Furthermore, this intense focus on Sinaloa comes at the expense of other regions.”
He adds: “The problem is with the arrival of Donald Trump, the ripple effects of the conflict in Sinaloa, and the judicial elections in June, all within the context of entrenched criminal regimes, the strategy could fail in the long term.”
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