Claudia Sheinbaum is Mexico’s first female leader in the nation’s more than 200 years of independence
MEXICO CITY (AP) — Claudia Sheinbaum takes office Tuesday as Mexico’s first female president in the nation’s more than 200 years of independence.
The 62-year-old former Mexico City mayor and lifelong leftist campaigned on a promise of continuity, of protecting and expanding the signature initiatives of her mentor, former President Andrés Manuel López Obrador.
In the four months between her election and inauguration she held that line, backing López Obrador on issues big and small. But Sheinbaum is a very different person; she likes data and doesn’t have López Obrador’s backslapping personal touch.
What’s Sheinbaum’s background?
Observers say that grounding showed itself in Sheinbaum’s actions as mayor during the COVID-19 pandemic, when her city of some 9 million people took a different approach from what López Obrador espoused at the national level.
Her parents were leading activists in Mexico’s 1968 student movement, which ended tragically in a government massacre of hundreds of student demonstrators in Mexico City’s Tlatelolco plaza just days before the Summer Olympics opened there that year.
What did her victory look like?
As López Obrador’s chosen successor, she enjoyed the boost of the high popularity he maintained throughout his six years in office.
The opposition’s coalition led by Gálvez struggled to gain traction, while support for the governing party carried over to Congress, where voters gave Morena and its allies margins that allowed it to pass important constitutional changes before López Obrador left office.
Where does she stand on recent contentious issues?
Before passage of a controversial constitutional overhaul of Mexico’s judiciary that will make all judges stand for election, Sheinbaum stood with López Obrador who had pushed it.
Sheinbaum said “the reforms to the judicial system will not affect our commercial relations, nor private Mexican investments, nor foreign ones. Rather the opposite, there will be a greater and better rule of law and democracy for everyone.”
Shortly after, when López Obrador’s proposal to put the National Guard under military command was being considered, Sheinbaum defended it against critics. She said it would not militarize the country and that the National Guard would respect human rights.
And just days before she took office, Sheinbaum stood with López Obrador in his long-running diplomatic spat with Spain. She defended her decision to not invite Spain's King Felipe VI to her inauguration, saying in part that the king had failed to apologize for Spain’s conquest of Mexico as López Obrador had demanded years earlier.
How important is her election for Mexican women?
Sheinbaum’s victory came 70 years after women won the right to vote in Mexico.
Since 2018, Mexico’s Congress has had a 50-50 gender split, in part due to gender quotas set for party candidates. Still, Sheinbaum inherits a country with soaring levels of violence against women.
Mexico’s Supreme Court ruled in 2023 that national laws prohibiting abortions are unconstitutional and violate women’s rights.
Although the Mexican ruling orders the removal of abortion from the federal penal code and requires federal health institutions to offer the procedure to anyone who requests it, further state-by-state legal work is pending to remove all penalties.
Feminists say that simply electing a woman as president does not guarantee she will govern with a gender perspective. Both Sheinbaum and López Obrador have been criticized before for appearing to lack empathy toward women protesting against gender violence.
