Claudia Sheinbaum, a climate scientist who moved from academia to the rocky world of politics, will be sworn on Tuesday as Mexico’s first female president. She takes office at a turbulent time around the world and in Mexico, where she will have to confront the perennial challenges of violence and migration, as well as the huge expectations left by her popular predecessor Andrés Manuel López Obrador.
In Mexico, women only gained the right to vote in 1953. They now occupy a significant place on the political spectrum, from city councils to governorships to congress. This change was underscored by the election of Sheinbaum, a leftist who won the national vote on June 2. She will become Mexico’s 66th president since its independence from Spain in 1821 and will serve one six-year term, as required by Mexican law.
The granddaughter of immigrants from Eastern Europe, Sheinbaum will be the first person of Jewish descent to hold the presidency in the overwhelmingly Roman Catholic country. She is a protégé of López Obrador, who plucked her from academic obscurity to make her his environment secretary in 2000 when he was mayor of Mexico City.
In 2015, Sheinbaum was elected head of Mexico City’s Tlalpan neighbourhood. Tlalpan was hit hard in September 2017 by a powerful magnitude 7.1 earthquake. But the effects of the natural disaster did not affect her popularity with the population. In July 2018, Sheinbaum came in first place in the Mexico City mayoral election, receiving 50 per cent of the vote and comfortably beating seven other candidates.
As in her previous positions, the first female mayor in the history of the Mexican capital was actively involved in public transport and environmental issues. In particular, her government organised a system of rational rainwater harvesting, changed the system of waste collection and disposal, and launched a reforestation programme.
Sheinbaum announced plans for a major overhaul of the city’s underground, which has long been in disrepair. Finally, the politician’s initiative continued the active development of the Metrobus transport system – buses that run on dedicated lines and connect the suburbs with the centre of Mexico City. She has also contributed greatly to improving safety in the city, where homicides have dropped by 50 per cent.
US President Joe Biden will not attend the meeting, but First Lady Jill Biden is scheduled to attend. California Governor Gavin Newsom will also attend the meeting.
