5 things to know about Mexico's first female president

Claudia Sheinbaum, an environmental scientist and former mayor of Mexico City, takes office on Tuesday as Mexico’s 66th president and its first female leader. Sheinbaum, who won the election in June in a landslide, assumes the presidency amid high expectations and enormous challenges, including endemic cartel violence and a large national deficit.

The political protege of popular outgoing President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, Sheinbaum has a reputation for being analytical, disciplined and unflappable. She campaigned on a promise to continue López Obrador’s legacy — a complicated one that is hard to fit into an ideological box. Supporters hail his popular social programs to help the poor; detractors accuse him of undermining the country’s fledgling democracy.

Here are five things to know about Sheinbaum:

She is Mexico's first female president

Sheinbaum’s presidency marks two milestones: She is the first female president in Mexico’s history and also the first with Jewish heritage.

In a conservative country led by men for more than two centuries, Sheinbaum’s victory underscores the advances women have made in the political sphere. It is also notable given Mexico’s problems with gender-based violence — it has one of the highest rates of murder against women in the world. Sheinbaum said as president she would create an anti-femicide prosecutor’s office, a measure she implemented when she was mayor of Mexico City. But she has dodged detailing her position on abortion rights and feminists criticized her campaign for lacking gender-specific policies.

Sheinbaum’s election is also notable for her Jewish heritage. Her grandparents emigrated to Mexico from Lithuania and Bulgaria. She says she is proud of her ancestry but not religiously affiliated.

Even so, her ascension is remarkable given that Jews comprise less than 1 percent in a country with an overwhelmingly Catholic population, one of the largest in the world.

She is a climate scientist

The 62-year-old has a Ph.D. in energy engineering and, in the early 1990s, studied at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in northern California. She was part of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change team that shared a Nobel Peace Prize with former U.S. Vice President Al Gore in 2007.

Sheinbaum started her political career as López Obrador’s environmental minister after he was elected Mexico City mayor in 2000. She has been unwaveringly loyal ever since, even as he sidelined green-energy projects and championed fossil fuels in an effort to secure energy independence.

Sheinbaum’s environmental platform marks one of the biggest pivots from López Obrador. It calls for more electric-powered public transit, promoting the use and production of electric vehicles, and renewable energy production through solar, wind and hydropower. Notably, López Obrador actively blocked renewable energy projects during his presidency.

At the same time, Sheinbaum has lauded one of López Obrador’s signature initiatives: a new multibillion dollar oil refinery known as Dos Bocas. The project, which Sheinbaum lauded as “majestic,” is plagued by cost overruns and remains far from fully operational. How Sheinbaum will deal with the refinery remains an open question.

She is López Obrador's political protege

Sheinbaum won the presidency in large part because of her close ties to López Obrador. One of the most popular and divisive figures in Mexican history, López Obrador implemented social programs that helped millions of people rise out of poverty while also weakening democratic institutions and empowering the military.

But where López Obrador is folksy and charismatic, Sheinbaum is seen as analytical and data-driven. Their differences were on display during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Even as López Obrador downplayed the importance of testing and dove into crowds of people, Sheinbaum expanded Mexico City’s testing capacity and urged social distancing.

Big picture, Sheinbaum has promised to expand on López Obrador’s vision for Mexico. In a sign of their alignment, she named to her cabinet many of López Obrador’s confidantes, including his finance minister, his public security minister, his former and current foreign affairs ministers.

One of the challenges for Sheinbaum will be to create a political identity that’s not directly connected to López Obrador.

She has a massive political mandate

Sheinbaum enters office with a massive political mandate. Her political coalition has a supermajority in the lower house of Congress and nearly two-thirds in the Senate.

But if López Obrador gave Sheinbaum political clout, he also saddled her with significant challenges. She will have to address a growing budget deficit fueled by his government’s spending on social programs, the Dos Bocas oil refinery and a major tourist train project.

She also confronts a transformed system of governance. One of López Obrador’s last major acts as president was to push through a constitutional amendment that will remove all of Mexico’s 7,000 judges from office. Under the amendment, judges will be elected instead of appointed — a reform López Obrador says is necessary to rid the judiciary of corruption and impunity.

Critics say the reform erodes checks and balances on presidential power and creates uncertainty in the business world, which has in turn caused the Mexican peso to plummet against the dollar. Among Sheinbaum’s first tasks as president will be to reassure financial markets while overseeing implementation of the judicial reform.

Sheinbaum's stances on security and migration

During the presidential campaign, polls showed that the No. 1 issue for voters in Mexico is security. Organized crime has become so powerful that gangs are extorting everything from gas stations to avocados growers and trucking companies. Sheinbaum says she will focus on addressing the root causes of crime and violence, similar to López Obrador.

She has also pledged to increase the number of National Guard soldiers and create youth education and job programs.

While immigration is a non-issue for voters in Mexico, it’s a top concern for voters in the United States. Consecutive Republican and Democratic administrations have pressured Mexico to ramp up enforcement and stop migrants from reaching the U.S.’ southern border. Political analysts say it’s likely Sheinbaum will, like López Obrador, work with the U.S. to deter migration, in large part because it has become a powerful cudgel to negotiate on other pressing issues, such as trade agreements.

Copyright 2024, NPR

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