MEXICO CITY (CN) — Mexico’s President-elect Claudia Sheinbaum on Thursday announced three new secretaries — tourism, culture and labor — nearly completing her executive cabinet for her presidential term beginning Oct. 1. She will choose army and navy secretaries days before she takes office.
“Today I present three brilliant young men and women,” Sheinbaum said before adding more cabinet members to the 17 already announced, some of whom have either already worked with Sheinbaum in politics, were colleagues of hers at the National Autonomous University of Mexico or worked for current President Andrés Manuel López Obrador.
“By integrating trusted colleagues and AMLO loyalists in key positions, she shows a preference for academic profiles with international experience, while signaling she will leverage AMLO’s political acumen when necessary,” said Viri Rios, a journalist, public policy advisor and U.S.-Mexico politics instructor at Harvard University.
Claudia Curiel Icaza, former secretary of culture of Mexico City, will be Sheinbaum’s secretary of culture in the executive branch. During her time as secretary of culture of Mexico City, Uriel Icaza promoted and organized various film, music and arts festivals such as the Bestia Festival, a jazz, film and experimental music festival founded in 2014 that has been hosted by various venues throughout the capital since its inception.
Curiel Icaza also promoted indigenous, traditional and alternative culture by helping to bring forth the Law of Independent Cultural Spaces of Mexico City to Congress, which legally guarantees and protects the rights of registered independent cultural spaces and organizations in Mexico City.
She also helped legally protect traditional festivals and carnivals as cultural heritage and, for the first time, created a pension plan for the Mexico City Philharmonic Orchestra. Curiel Icaza has a history degree from the National Autonomous University of Mexico.
“I feel very grateful and honored to have this responsibility,” Curiel Icaza said in a speech after Sheinbaum’s announcement. “I am convinced that culture is the language of identities that allows us to understand who we are, where we are, how we spend our time here and what we want to build.”
For tourism secretary, Sheinbaum announced Josefina Rodríguez Zamora, who was born in 1989 and will be the youngest member of the cabinet.
“If you ask any tourism secretary in the country, they will highly recommend Josefina, she is a creative young woman,” Sheinbaum said.
Rodríguez Zamora — a former advisor to the senior officer of the Puebla city ministry of public education — created the “Tlaxcala sí existe” or, “yes, Tlaxcala exists” tourism campaign highlighting the cultural importance of her home state of Tlaxcala, referencing an internet joke among Mexicans that Mexico’s smallest state does not actually exist due its lack of press coverage and perceived lack of state identity.
She won the Madrid International Tourism Fair’s 2024 Tourism Innovation Award for her “Tlaxcala Brilla,” “Tlaxcala Shines” tourism campaign launched last year to promote the state’s firefly season.
She was also in charge of collaborating in the creation of the world’s largest sawdust carpet in Huamantla, Tlaxcala. Over 200 artisans created an intricately designed carpet of sawdust, beads, flowers and sand featuring religious motifs and traditional patterns. The carpet was created to host a procession at the city’s yearly festival.
“I will put all my creativity, loyalty and commitment to develop tourism for all. Where indigenous peoples, artisans and entire communities within Mexico’s 32 states will benefit from this noble industry,” Rodríguez Zamora said at the press conference Thursday.
Marath Baruch Bolaños Lopez will continue his position as Mexico’s labor and social welfare secretary, a post he has held since June 2023 under López Obrador.
Among his accomplishments as secretary is his development of the Young People Building the Future social program, which is a national program that enables young people between 18 and 29 of all education levels to train in any of the program’s work centers for up to 12 months receiving around $400 a month and health insurance through Mexico’s social security institute.
Bolaños Lopez is the former deputy of the Constituent Assembly of Mexico City, which was a group formed in 2016 to create Mexico City’s first constitution after the 2016 political reforms changed Mexico City’s political status from a federal district — the city previously was known officially as Distrito Federal, or Federal District — to a state, giving the city greater autonomy.
He is also an International Relations professor at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, from which he graduated.
Bolaños Lopez discussed in the press conference the current government’s labor accomplishments, such as the rise in the minimum wage, pension reforms, subcontracting regulations and protection of labor unions — policies he vowed to continue under Sheinbaum.
“The labor secretariat has coordinated with the labor policies proposed by President Andrés Manuel López Obrador since the beginning of 2018. The policies have resulted in a spring of labor rights through various actions that have benefitted millions of male and female workers in our country,” he said after he was announced Thursday.
According to a survey Wednesday by polling agency MetricsMX, 71% say that Sheinbaum’s cabinet choices are either good or very good and 72.4% say her transition has gone well or very well.
Also on Wednesday, Sheinbaum announced that like her predecessor, she will also hold press conferences every morning of her presidency.