MEXICO CITY.– The future president of Mexico, Claudia Sheinbaum, On Thursday, he appointed four other members of his next cabinet, including the new Secretary of the Interior and Rosa Icela Rodríguez, the current head of the Security portfolio.
The Ministry of the Interior is considered the second most important federal political position after the Presidency.
Rodríguez, who initially had a professional career as a journalist, became the first woman to lead the federal security portfolio in 2020, a position she assumed after leaving the Mexico City mayor’s office where she worked alongside Sheinbaum as Secretary of Government.
Sheinbaum also appointed Omar García Harfuch to the post of Secretary of Security, who was her right-hand man in that area when she was mayor of Mexico City between 2018 and 2023.
The appointment of García Harfuch, currently elected senator, did not come as a surprise since, since June 11, rumors about his possible appointment have intensified after he appeared alongside Sheinbaum and future foreign minister Juan Ramón de la Fuente in a meeting with Liz Sherwood-Randall, advisor to US President Joe Biden on national security matters, and the US ambassador to Mexico, Ken Salazar.
The growing violence affecting vast regions of Mexico will be one of the challenges that Sheinbaum will have to face when she takes office on October 1.
To address this problem, the future president has promised to strengthen and improve the training of police forces, which have been weakened in recent years, to create a national intelligence and investigation system in which the public prosecutor’s offices will participate, and to promote social programs aimed at young people to prevent them from being recruited by criminals.
Sheinbaum has expressed her support for the constitutional reform project that will allow the National Guard to be placed under the control of the army, thereby suggesting that she will continue with the policy of the outgoing government of Andrés Manuel López Obrador of having the armed forces participate in public security tasks.
During a press conference, the future president announced that Mario Delgado, leader of the ruling Morena party, will be the Secretary of Public Education, and that the current Secretary of Welfare will be Ariadna Montiel.
Following her victory in the June 2 elections, Sheinbaum has announced thirteen other members of her team, including the Secretary of the Treasury, Rogelio Ramírez de la O, who decided to remain in office; former Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard, who will be the Secretary of the Economy; the head of Mexican diplomacy, Alicia Bárcena, who will move to the Environment portfolio; the agronomist Julio Berdegué, who will go to Agriculture; and De la Fuente, who served until last year as Mexico’s ambassador to the United Nations and will now be the Secretary of Foreign Affairs.
He also named economist and sustainable development expert Luz Elena González Escobar as Secretary of Energy; renowned scientist and researcher David Kershenobich as Secretary of Health, and former capital prosecutor Ernestina Godoy as legal advisor to the Presidency.
Rosaura Ruiz will be in charge of the new Science Secretariat, and the current Minister of the Economy, Raquel Buenrostro, will take over the Civil Service portfolio, which is responsible for the internal affairs of the cabinet.
Mexico City’s Public Works Secretary, Jesús Antonio Esteva Medina, will take over as head of the Communications and Transportation portfolio, and Edna Vega Rangel will be the Secretary of Agrarian, Territorial and Urban Development.
Sheinbaum has integrated her cabinet with many of the people who accompanied her in the Mexico City Mayor’s Office, members of López Obrador’s government, academics and researchers.
The appointments made so far show that Sheinbaum will not distance herself from the political project of her mentor López Obrador, but will give the government her personal stamp.
Source: With information from AP
