Mexico elects first female President, as Claudia ends PRI Party dominance
Oru Leonard
In an election marred by unprecedented violence, Claudia Sheinbaum 61 a member of the left-wing political party Morena and former Mayor of Mexico City, has been elected as the first female president of Mexico in an historic landslide win.
She won between 58 and 60% of the preliminary results of votes cast in Sunday’s election.
This result gives her a comfortable lead of almost 30 percentage points over her main rival, businesswoman Xóchitl Gálvez.
Ms Sheinbaum will replace her mentor, outgoing President Andrés Manuel López Obrador on 1 October as president of the Institutional
The incoming president has promised continuity, saying that she will continue to build on the “advances” made by Mr López Obrador.
Being Mexico’s first female president to break the political glass ceiling, Sheinbaum in her victory speech, told voters: “I won’t fail you.
Prior to running for president, Ms Sheinbaum was mayor of Mexico City, one of the most influential political positions in the country and one that is seen as paving the way for her presidency.
Ms Sheinbaum, whose Jewish maternal grandparents immigrated to Mexico from Bulgaria fleeing the Nazis, had an illustrious career as a scientist before delving into politics.
Her paternal grandparents ham Lithuania.
Both of her parents were scientists and Ms Sheinbaum studied physics before going on to receive a doctorate in energy engineering.
She spent years at a renowned research lab in California in the United States studying Mexican energy consumption patterns and became an expert on climate change.
That experience and her student activism eventually earned her the position of secretary of the environment for Mexico City at the time Andrés Manuel López Obrador was mayor of the capital.
In 2018 she became the first female mayor of Mexico City but stepped down in 2023 to run for president. Claudia Sheinbaum will be Mexico’s first woman President in the nation’s more than 200 years of independence.
