Thousands took to the streets of Mexico City and filled the immense Zocalo square, the political heart of the country, to celebrate the historic victory of Claudia Sheinbaum, the first woman elected president of Mexico. A triumph, that of the doctor, candidate of the Sigamos Haciendo Historia platform, the left-wing coalition that brings together the social democrats of Morena, the ecologists and the Labor Party: 58% of the votes beyond the most rosy forecasts of the polls, almost double the challenger center-right Xóchitl Gálvez, candidate from the historic Mexican center-right formations such as the National Action Party (PAN), the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) and the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) stopped at 29%. Jorge Máynez third wheel and candidate from the independent left-wing party Movimiento ciudadano obtains 10%.
Sheinbaum, collects the political legacy of the outgoing president Andrés Manuel López Obrador, better known as AMLO, one of the most popular heads of state in the recent history of Mexico who tried to counteract the impoverishment of the middle-lower classes with his policy of “war on poverty”, much loved by the left-wing electorate despite the chiaroscuro balance sheet of his presidency (he finished his six-year mandate with an approval rating of 66% but social inequalities remain high and the violence of narcos continues to stain the news is full of blood).
AMLO strongly supported Sheinbaum’s electoral campaign, between the two there is a personal friendship and a political partnership that dates back to the early 2000s. In 2018 Sheinbaum, Morena’s candidate, was elected mayor of Mexico City, becoming a personalities of national importance; her mandate is characterized by environmentalist policies (with its 21 million inhabitants it is one of the most polluted metropolises on the planet) by creating modern infrastructures and social aid campaigns for the poorest classes.
One of her greatest and indisputable successes was the fight against the real scourge of violence in the Mexican capital: during the five years of her mandate (she resigned in 2023 to run for president) the homicide rate in the metropolitan area practically halved. Claudia Sheinbaum is a scientist, a physicist and an energy engineer: she was born in 1962, the second of three children, into a progressive family devoted to science, her mother was the biologist Annie Pardo, her father the chemist Carlos Sheinbaum. Both of her parents participated in the student revolts of 1968. Her grandparents, Jews and communists, had emigrated to Mexico from Lithuania and Bulgaria between 1920 and 1940, fleeing anti-Semitic persecution.
During the electoral campaign Sheinbaum managed to enrich her image as a studious and competent politician by showing unprecedented passion and charisma even if her entourage swears that she will lead the country with the rigor and morality of always: «She will be a better president than me », said AMLO. Everyone from the opposition recognized Sheinbaum’s victory and congratulated her even though many maligned that Sheinbaum will always remain under the protective wing of her mentor and that AMLO will continue to move the pawns of Mexican politics. Given the many challenges that await her, between the war on poverty and the fight against drug cartels, President Sheinbaum will also have to dispel this chauvinist prejudice.
In her first speech as elected (she will officially take office at the National Palace in four months), she did not hide her great emotion, albeit with her traditional contained style: «For the first time in the two hundred year history of the Republic, Mexico will have a I am a woman president and it will be a transformation, I thank the millions of voters and electricians who voted for me. They want a plural, diverse and democratic country. Our duty is and will always be to take care of every citizen, without distinction. Even if many Mexicans do not fully agree with our project, we will have to walk in peace and harmony to continue building a just and more prosperous Mexico.”
