In a milestone moment for Mexico’s leftist Morena party, Claudia Sheinbaum, a close collaborator of outgoing president Andrés Manuel López Obrador, has been elected as the country’s inaugural female president. Drawing 59% of the votes, Sheinbaum’s victory came amid fluctuating business sentiment and an unstable peso. Her commitment is to perpetuate López Obrador’s quest for social justice, uphold fiscal discipline, respect free trade and rapidly draw external investments. The Morena party has also seized dominance of the capital and seven out of eight state governorships.
With an eminent background as a climate scientist in a UN panel that won a Nobel Peace Prize and also as the former mayor of Mexico City, Sheinbaum finds herself confronting the steepest budgetary deficit since the 80s. The costly aftermath of López Obrador’s welfare schemes and substantial infrastructure works. Amid an election battle that witnessed the murder of nearly 36 candidates by drug mafias, Sheinbaum echoed his contentious stance of emphasising addressing the root causes of violence rather than direct confrontations with the criminal gangs.
Her unprecedented election triumph reflects a significant step in a nation notorious for its machismo culture and widespread violent acts against women, which has been showing promising progress in female representation of late.
In a trailblazing move in 2019, gender equality in all three arms of government was enshrined in Mexico’s constitution, resulting in women comprising half of the country’s legislature today. Women occupy the positions of chief justice, heads of both congress houses and central bank governor, and many senior ministerial positions.
Acknowledging her groundbreaking accomplishment post the election, Sheinbaum stated, “For the first time in 200 years of the republic, I will become the first female president of Mexico. I do not arrive alone. We all arrived, with our heroines who gave us our homeland, our ancestors, our mothers, our daughters and our granddaughters.”
Sheinbaum is now poised to be the country’s most influential figure, the head of the armed forces, and the overseer of Latin America’s second-largest economy.