By David Agren.

President Claudia Sheinbaum demurred when asked about Rosario Piedra being re-elected as president of the National Human Rights Commission (CNDH), despite receiving the worst score in senate evaluations for the position. Piedra was also not the new president’s preferred candidate for the position. This was seemingly confirmed when she curtly ended her Wednesday press conference with the words, “It's a decision made by the Senate.”

Sheinbaum reversed herself the following day and defended Piedra, whose tenure at the CNDH featured a robust defence of Sheinbaum’s predecessor, Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO), and the military, while paying short shrift to victims. She also addressed the elephant in the room: AMLO and perceptions that he intervened to impose Piedra on his protégé, who has yet to show signs of differing with AMLO on any meaningful issue.

“He has already retired from public life. He is writing his book. He’s engaged in other work in transformation,” Sheinbaum said in a rambling response at her Thursday press conference. “You really believe that he’s interested – from Palenque – in thinking about who’s going to be president of the CNDH?”

The indignant response raised eyebrows for revealing AMLO’s whereabouts, the source of some speculation recently. Palenque is the Chiapas town where the former president owns an estate. AMLO disappeared from public life after leaving office – effectively staying out of sight after nearly 25 years of constant campaigning, whether in office, barnstorming the country or masquerading as the “legitimate president” after the 2006 election.

For many in Mexico’s chattering classes, however, the answer to Sheinbaum’s question on AMLO being interested in the CNDH election was a resounding “yes.” Many showed scepticism with AMLO’s stated intention of only speaking up when asked or to exercise his “right to dissent.”

“The speed with which she evaded the subject [of Piedra’s re-election] showed the weakness of her young presidency. She doesn’t even have control of her own party,” Javier Garza, a journalist and commentator in Torreón, said on X after Sheinbaum not commenting on Piedra.

The process for picking Piedra was noteworthy. She was not believed to be Sheinbaum’s preferred candidate, and appeared to have little Senate backing until a sudden swing in support. Garza asked, “Is the revelation that of Claudia Sheinbaum’s weakness against her predecessor, who can impose his whims on her?”

Even commentators with pro-AMLO and pro-Sheinbaum sympathies wondered aloud about the dynamics between the former and current president, though they were quick to shoot down any suggesting that Sheinbaum was a puppet.

“AMLO’s right to dissent must be respected, but it needs to be processed without affecting Claudia’s leadership,” Jorge Zepeda Patterson said in an X post promoting his Milenio column. “The only thing debilitating Morena is internal division.”

Lost in the politicking was the acquiescence of Piedra. During her tenure as CNDH president she showed little interest in the human rights commission acting as oversight body. Its protestations of defending “el pueblo,” were largely defences of AMLO, who often sold the idea of Mexico suddenly improving with his mere arrival in office.

“This is an undeserved prize for a career marked by inaction, the loss of independence and the weakening of the institution,” the Jesuit-run Miguel Agustín Pro Juárez human rights center said on X. Retired Bishop Raúl Vera of Saltillo also blasted Piedra, but only after she submitted a letter of recommendation with his signature – which the bishop, known for his human rights activism, said was a forgery.

Some analysts speculated that AMLO backed Piedra out of respect for her mother, Rosario Ibarra. Her tireless search for her son, Jesús Piedra – disappeared by the authorities in 1975 and accused of being a leftist guerrilla – led her to prominence as a human rights activist and a presidential run.

They cite another reason, too, for keeping Piedra at the CNDH: the military, which AMLO leaned on as an ally throughout his presidency.

Morena lawmakers cited “reasons of state,” for pushing Piedra, which “cannot be anything other than the army,” said Diego Peterson Farah, columnist at the Guadalajara newspaper El Informador. “The only (institution) that was going to be the target of CNDH complaints was the army.”

As the Associated Press noted, in its story on Piedra: “Despite receiving over 1,800 citizen complaints against the armed forces between 2020 and 2023, her commission issued only 39 recommendations, and most of the few military cases her commission did follow up on involved abuses committed under previous administrations.”