Mexico’s president-elect, Claudia Sheinbaum, has revealed this Thursday the next heads of two of the most important and highly anticipated portfolios. The current head of Security, Rosa Icela Rodríguez, will be in charge of the Ministry of the Interior in the next six-year term; while Omar García Harfuch, who accompanied the former head of government in the city, will be the new secretary of Security and Citizen Protection. This week’s appointments have included the current Secretary of Welfare, Ariadna Montiel, who will remain in her position, and Mario Delgado, president of the National Regeneration Movement (Morena), who will serve in the Education department. The virtual president has made a new commitment to combine her most trusted people, maintain continuity with the Government of Andrés Manuel López Obrador and make room for those loyal to the party.
The appointments this Thursday for the future Cabinet, a recent custom that Sheinbaum has established in recent weeks, have put an end to the endless speculation that fell on two of the most prominent departments. “You had your bets, right?” the president-elect said amused to the journalists present. The names announced, however, have not been a great surprise: those designated as new members of the Cabinet were in all the bets, it only remained to be known which department they would be assigned to. The appointments, which on this occasion were only four, compared to the six that had been made weekly, have maintained the gender parity rule that has granted at least half of the positions in the team to women. Those of National Defense and the Navy are expected later, a little before Sheinbaum takes office.
The choice of the most faithful
It is known within Sheinbaum’s team that one of the qualities that “the boss,” as they call her, values most is loyalty. An attribute that has been rewarded when choosing the next Cabinet that will govern Mexico. In previous weeks, the president-elect brought back former collaborators who had proven loyal, but on this occasion she has opted for two people she trusts the most. Rosa Icela Rodríguez, 64, has had a close relationship with Sheinbaum for many years. She was her Secretary of Government in Mexico City between 2018 and 2020, until López Obrador called her to head the General Coordinator of Ports and Merchant Marine, first, and later for the Secretariat of Security.
A journalist by training and with a master’s degree in Criminal Sciences, Rodríguez has at least two decades of experience in the public sector. “She has vast experience, we have worked together and I know that she will perform excellently and with great professionalism and honesty in the Ministry of the Interior,” said Sheinbaum when announcing her appointment. The current official has thanked the opportunity and has assured that it will be “a privilege to walk” alongside the first female president in history. “I am clear that you made a series of commitments during your campaign that must be fulfilled, we will give value to the word of a woman,” she promised. In a government without the position of vice president, such as Mexico’s, the Ministry of the Interior is understood as a kind of number two in the Executive Branch. “I am sure that under your mandate we will achieve good results,” she added.
García Harfuch is the other person of utmost confidence for the future president. A character rescued from previous Administrations, the police officer became one of the most loyal officials to Sheinbaum in the Government of Mexico City, where he led the Secretariat of Citizen Security between 2019 and 2023. That loyalty earned him the support of his former boss when García Harfuch sought the candidacy for the head of government last year. Morena, however, left him out of the race for the capital, and Sheinbaum rescued him again to add him to her campaign team. A graduate in law and a master in Public Security, the former official led the Dialogues for Transformation that were focused on the insecurity crisis.
The task that García Harfuch will have in the next six-year term will be of great importance, because he will be in charge of the Government’s security strategy, which aims to tackle the discouraging numbers that López Obrador leaves behind with more coordination and a larger budget dedicated to intelligence tasks.
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