Claudia Sheinbaum was elected president of Mexico according to the country’s election institute early Monday. She is a climate scientist, the former mayor of Mexico City, and a member of the left-wing Moreno Party, the same party as the outgoing President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (who was also its founder). She vowed to continue the legacy of Obrador, whom she considers a mentor.
Sheinbaum, 61, is the first female to be elected president in Mexican history. She is also the first person of Jewish descent to lead the predominantly Catholic nation.
According to the Mexican National Electoral Institute, she is projected to receive about 58 percent of the vote, keeping her well above the threshold of a recount.
“For the first time in 200 years of the Republic, there will be a woman president and she will be transformative,” she wrote on X. “Thanks to each and every Mexican. Today we demonstrate with our vote that we are a democratic people. I invite you to follow the transmission.”
Por primera vez en 200 años de la República, habrá una mujer presidenta y será transformadora. Gracias a todas y todos los mexicanos. Hoy demostramos con nuestro voto que somos un pueblo democrático. Les invito a seguir la transmisión.#EnVivo https://t.co/kjKUkFOQnf
— Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo (@Claudiashein) June 3, 2024
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During her acceptance speech, Sheinbaum said, “We are going to continue making Mexico a more just, democratic, free, sovereign nation every day, to continue building a great nation.”
Mexico City’s central plaza erupted in applause and cheers early Monday morning as Mexico’s projected first woman President Claudia Sheinbaum spoke before the crowd. pic.twitter.com/NQEVlZXZHT
— The Associated Press (@AP) June 3, 2024
Sheinbaum has a PhD in “energy engineering,” and her brother is a professional physicist. “I believe in science,” Sheinbaum told the Associated Press in 2023; her bio on X also says, “Scientific, humanist, with deep love for my country and my people.” As Mexico City Mayor, Sheinbaum took a more hardline stance on COVID-19 than did Lopez Obrador, launching a massive virus testing initiative, limiting the hours that businesses could operate, and promoted social distancing long into the pandemic even while the country had moved on from such precautions at the federal level.
She is a proponent of gargantuan climate change proposals and in February met with the de facto leader of the ESG movement, Larry Fink. “I met with Larry Fink, an American political scientist, businessman and financier,” she wrote on X. “President of BlackRock, the largest asset management company in the world. We talked about the Mexican moment and I thanked him very much for his visit.”
Me reuní con Larry Fink, politólogo, empresario y financiero estadounidense. Presidente de BlackRock, la empresa de gestión de activos más grande del mundo. Hablamos del momento mexicano y le agradecí mucho su visita. pic.twitter.com/WQyC05UxpP
— Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo (@Claudiashein) February 22, 2024
Mexico’s peso fell 4.1 percent against the US dollar early Monday according to LSEG data, and the Mexican stock market as a whole fell more than 2 percent following the election results. The Peso’s value has declined more than 3 percent since December. According to a Reuters report, many are concerned that the ruling party achieving a strong victory means they will ignore checks and balances and amend the nation’s constitution without input from the other parties.
“The question is whether the Morena party has done so well that it could command a super-majority and try to pursue market non-friendly policies of constitutional reform,” said global head of markets at ING Chris Turner.
A wave of violence sweeping Mexico has become a central campaign issue for politicians. Mexico sees 10 women and girls murdered on a daily basis; within the first five years of Lopez Obrador’s presidency, Mexico saw 160,594 homicides, and the number of missing people has skyrocketed to 111,000. Lopez Obrador has brushed off criticism regarding the missing people as sufferers of a “delirium of necrophilia.”
The violence is even spilling into politics, with this year’s election being the deadliest in modern Mexican history: 37 political candidates were assassinated and 828 were attacked. Most were running in local elections, such as Jorge Huerta Cabrera, who was shot and killed on Friday in the town of Izucar de Matamoros while running for a council seat. Some 36 candidates were murdered during the 2021 midterm election, according data security firm Integralia.
Regarding this surge of violence, Sheinbaum said she would enhance the quasi-military National Guard formed by Lopez Obrador and continue his policy of poverty alleviation in the name of preventing Cartels from recruiting young people. “Let it be clear, it doesn’t mean an iron fist, wars or authoritarianism,” she said during her last campaign speech. “We will promote a strategy of addressing the causes and continue moving toward zero impunity.”
But critics suggest Sheinbaum’s victory is a “victory for organized crime,” as her liberal criminal justice policies in Mexico City led to a “femicide epidemic.”
She has praised Lopez Obrador’s legacy and has attributed increasing poverty rates to “neoliberal economic policies.” She promised to keep the large welfare system and continue supporting the state-owned oil company Pemex even while pursuing a climate agenda.
Shane Devine is a writer covering politics and business for VT and a regular guest on The Unusual Suspects. Follow Shane’s work here.
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