This chapter examines the dismantling of Mexico’s Professional Career Service (SPC) during the administration of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, focusing on the political motivations, strategies, and institutional consequences of this process. While the SPC remained legally in force, the government progressively eroded its essence through discretionary decisions that prioritized loyalty over merit. The dismissal of career civil servants, the freezing of hiring, the reduction of mid-level positions, and the systematic use of temporary or politically appointed staff weakened the mechanisms designed to ensure competition in personnel selection and promotion. Regulatory changes linked to austerity further contributed to the loss of professionalization, while presidential rhetoric delegitimized the bureaucracy and justified abandoning merit-based standards. These dismantling strategies reduced the density and intensity of the SPC, undermining institutional memory, administrative capacity, and accountability. The chapter argues that the erosion of the SPC represents a deliberate political decision that reinstated clientelism practices and significantly weakened the federal state’s capacity to provide effective public administration.