Mexico’s incoming president announced her appointees for top posts Thursday, but hopes for a fresh approach were dashed by the re-appearance of old faces in the new cabinet.
President-elect Claudia Sheinbaum announced that Rosa Icela Rodríguez, who headed outgoing President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s failed security strategy, will serve as the next interior secretary.
That is Mexico’s top domestic political post, responsible for handling negotiations with protesters and Mexico’s 32 powerful state governors. Sheinbaum will take office Oct. 1.
As expected, Omar García Harfuch — who served as Mexico City police chief when Sheinbaum was mayor — was appointed to head Mexico’s increasingly powerless Public Safety Department, the top law-enforcement post.
García Harfuch is credited with bringing down homicides in the capital, though the numbers he claims are disputed. He gained respect after he survived a dramatic 2020 drug cartel ambush that wounded him and left three other people dead.
Sheinbaum has pledged to strip control of the National Guard, Mexico’s main law enforcement agency, from the Public Safety Department and turn the 117,000-member force over to the Army. García Harfuch will control little other than the country’s prisons when he takes over the job.
But it was the appointment of Rodríguez that turned heads: a very poor public speaker with no experience in campaigns or as an elected official, she breaks the long-standing practice of appointing experienced political pros — often former state governors — to the interior ministry post, where negotiating skills are key.
Rodríguez is also closely identified with López Obrador’s “hugs not bullets” strategy of not confronting drug cartels, and militarizing law enforcement. In his six-year term, López Obrador has not been able to significantly reduce record-high levels of killings in Mexico.
Sheinbaum belongs to López Obrador’s Morena party and has pledged to continue all of his…
