What Now?

January 11, 2026

Luis Rubio

In his chronicle of his participation in the Spanish Civil War, Homage to Catalonia, George Orwell describes not only what he lived and observed, but also the conflicts and tensions within the Republican coalition in whose ranks he had fought. Amos Oz once wrote that there are two ways to understand conflict: one is Shakespearean, in which characters vindicate justice, but all end up dead; the other is Chekhovian, in which everyone ends up sad, angry, and estranged—but alive. Unfortunately, Mexican politics over the past quarter century chose Shakespeare as its guide, and the generalized control now exercised by a single party threatens to deepen that path. The real challenge is one of leadership because, in the absence of institutions—even mediocre ones like those that once existed—everything depends on a single person and her political party, who will bear full responsibility for what unfolds.

Mexico’s democratization was not divine grace but the result of pressures that built up over decades—since the 1960s—pressures to which the old political system responded only grudgingly. In The Mechanics of Political Change in Mexico: Elections, Parties, Reforms, Becerra, Salazar, and Woldenberg explain how that process unfolded, the negotiations that took place, and the criteria by which the PRI regime acted. Seen from today, the book’s point is clear: a demanding citizenry grew and, little by little, changed the country. To close one’s eyes to that transformation is like trying to squeeze toothpaste back into the tube.

Yet it is also imperative to recognize that the regime change brought about by creating a level playing field for electoral competition was not comprehensive and did not solve all of Mexico’s problems. Free elections and accurate vote counts solved the problem of access to power, but they did not fix the absence of accountability, nor did they produce an effective, functional, and successful system of government. Morena’s rise to power was the response of the citizenry to the immense disorder that plagued (and still plagues) the country. But Morena has not delivered better governance, peace, stability, or progress. Like all governments, it addressed some problems—notably poverty—but it has fallen far short of laying the foundations for a stronger future. Indeed, Morena’s seventh year in power was devoted to denying the democratization that had occurred in previous decades and dismantling the institutions created—at least in concept—to make possible a future of participation, equity, and prosperity.

Now, at the dawn of a new year and the early days of President Sheinbaum’s second year in office, the pressing question is: what comes next? It is clear that the institutional framework built in recent decades was insufficient to produce good governance, accelerate economic growth, or integrate the country’s most lagging regions into the modernization project. Still, Morena’s answer in recent months—tearing down everything that existed to concentrate power in the presidency and the party—is a poor bet for addressing the challenges Mexico faces.

Whereas the institutional design of the 1990s dispersed power, Morena’s strategy of concentrating it leaves the entire future in the hands of a single individual, bringing Mexico back to the starting point: now everything depends on the quality of leadership exercised by the president.

The common denominator of figures such as Benito Juárez, Porfirio Díaz, Venustiano Carranza, Álvaro Obregón, Plutarco Elías Calles, Lázaro Cárdenas, Carlos Salinas, and Andrés Manuel López Obrador was not their ideological definition, but their leadership. Each was, in their own way, an exceptional leader—able to break through obstacles and push forward their respective development projects, with varying degrees of success.

Had it functioned properly, the advantage of a decentralized system of government—like those in most developed and successful nations—would have been to disperse responsibility while reinforcing political and economic stability through performance dependent on multiple factors rather than just one. When the opposite occurs, as is our case today, all responsibility falls on a single individual, and leadership takes on exorbitant dimensions.

Thus begins the new year: with a colossal challenge. Governing a nation as large, diverse, and complex as Mexico is already a monumental task (Porfirio Díaz once quipped that “governing Mexicans is harder than herding turkeys on horseback”), now magnified by circumstances such as violence, insecurity, economic stagnation, Trump, and the country’s ancestral inequality. Perhaps, in this context, our rulers will begin to recognize the wisdom of the previous governance model, which sought to establish reliable, credible, and enforceable rules of the game. For without those rules, everything falls upon a single person.