Claudia Sheinbaum takes office as Mexico’s first female president

Claudia Sheinbaum She took office on Tuesday as Mexico’s first female president in more than 200 years since independence.

The former mayor of Mexico City, 62, and lifelong leftist campaigned on a promise to continue to protect and expand the signature programs of his mentor, former President Andrés Manuel López Obrador.

In the four months between him election and his inauguration he held that line, supporting López Obrador on issues big and small. But Sheinbaum is a very different person; he loves data and lacks the personal touch of López Obrador.

Mexico is now waiting to see if he will come out of his shadow.

Sheinbaum’s background is in science. He holds a Ph.D. in power engineering. His brother is a physicist. In a 2023 interview with the Associated Press, Sheinbaum said, “I believe in science.”

Observers say the stability showed in Sheinbaum’s actions as mayor during the COVID-19 crisis, when his city of about 9 million people took a different path from what López Obrador supported at the national level.
Sheinbaum imposed restrictions on the hours and capacity of the business as the virus spread rapidly and expanded its range of testing. He also wore a mask in public and urged people to keep social distance.

He comes from an old, staunchly left tradition that predates López Obrador’s populist, nationalist movement.

The President of Colombia, Gustavo Petro, has dropped a bomb before Sheinbaum’s opening, telling reporters that he had been a sympathizer with the Colombian guerrillas, M-19 – a group that Petro himself once belonged to – and that he helped exiled rebels while passing through Mexico. “Many Mexicans came to help us, and among them was Claudia.”

Although Sheinbaum’s office did not immediately respond to questions about Petro’s comments, the theory is unlikely: Sheinbaum comes from a more traditional ‘leftist’ background than López Obrador, and he also said he was part of many leftist youth groups during his university days. years, during which he would support rebel groups in Central and South America.

His parents were leading activists in Mexico’s 1968 student movement, which ended tragically in the government’s massacre of hundreds of protesting students in Mexico City’s Tlatelolco plaza a few days before the opening of the Summer Olympics there that year.

Sheinbaum is also the first president with a Jewish background in a predominantly Catholic country.

Sheinbaum led the way and won in a landslide in June with nearly 60% of the vote, almost double the amount of his nearest rival, Xóchitl Gálvez.

As López Obrador’s chosen successor, he has enjoyed a surge in popularity that he has maintained throughout his six years in office.

An opposition coalition led by Gálvez struggled to gain power, while the ruling party’s support spilled over to Congress, where voters gave Morena and his allies a margin allowing them to pass key constitutional changes before López Obrador leaves office.

Before the passage of a controversial amendment to Mexico’s judicial constitution that would make all judges eligible for election, Sheinbaum sided with López Obrador, who had rejected it.

Sheinbaum said “changes in the justice system will not affect our commercial relations, or private investment in Mexico, or in other countries. Rather, on the contrary, there will be greater and better rule of law and democracy for everyone.”

Soon after, when considering López Obrador’s proposal to put the National Guard under military command, Sheinbaum defended it against critics. He said it will not cause the country to go to war and the National Guard will respect human rights.

And just days before he took office, Sheinbaum stood by López Obrador during his diplomatic stint with Spain. He defended his decision not to invite Spain’s King Felipe VI to his coronation, saying in part that the king had failed to apologize for Spain’s conquest of Mexico as López Obrador had sought years ago.

Sheinbaum’s victory came 70 years after women won the right to vote in Mexico.

The race really came down to two women, Sheinbaum and Gálvez, but Mexico’s rampant machismo is still pushing both women to explain why they think they can be president.

As of 2018, Mexico’s Congress has a 50-50 gender split, in part due to gender quotas set for candidates. Still, Sheinbaum inherits the land increasing levels of violence against women. About 24 hours after Sheinbaum’s election victory, the female mayor of a town in western Mexico, Yolanda Sanchez Figueroa, was shot dead on a public street, according to local media. The Michoacan attorney general’s office said the mayor’s bodyguards were also killed.

There are still many parts of the country, especially the rural areas of the Aboriginal people where men hold all the power. And some 2.5 million women work hard in domestic work where despite the reforms they continue to face low pay, harassment by employers, long hours and unstable working conditions.

Mexico’s Supreme Court ruled in 2023 that national laws banning abortion are unconstitutional and violate women’s rights.

While the Mexican decision mandates the removal of abortion from the federal penal code and requires state health centers to provide the procedure to anyone who requests it, some state-by-state legislative work is still pending to remove all penalties.

Feminists say that electing a woman as president does not guarantee that she will rule by gender. Both Sheinbaum and López Obrador have been criticized in the past for appearing to lack empathy for women protesting gender-based violence.