Claudia Sheinbaum is all set to become the first woman president of Mexico, according to official preliminary results.
The president of the National Electoral Institute on Sunday said Sheinbaum, a climate scientist and former mayor of Mexico City, saw an irreversible lead between 58.3% and 60.7% of the vote, as per the rapid sample count by Mexico's electoral authority, as per Reuters.
Meanwhile, the opposition candidate Xochitl Galvez has secured between 26.6% and 28.6% of the vote. The final results will be declared on June 8, and the newly-elected president will take over the office on October 1, Al Jazeera reported.
"For the first time in the 200 years of the republic I will become the first woman president of Mexico," Sheinbaum told the crowd who were cheering "President, president," Politico reported.
Speaking at a downtown hotel Sunday night shortly after electoral authorities announced a statistical sample showed she held an irreversible lead, Sheinbaum said her two competitors had called her and conceded her victory.
"I will become the first woman president of Mexico," Sheinbaum said. "I don't make it alone. We've all made it, with our heroines who gave us our homeland, with our mothers, our daughters and our granddaughters."
If the final results are also in Sheinbaum's favor and make her the first president, then it will be a big milestone for Mexico, a country with a macho culture and a large Roman Catholic population.
Traditionally, Mexico is known for traditional values and gender roles for women. Sheinbaum's victory will mark the first time a woman won a general election in the United States, Mexico or Canada.
An 87-year-old Sheinbaum supporter named Edelmira Montiel said, "I never imagined that one day I would vote for a woman. Before we couldn't even vote, and when you could, it was to vote for the person your husband told you to vote for. Thank God that has changed and I get to live it."
During election campaigns, Sheinbaum had promised that she would improve security in the country.
This year's election was the most violent one in the modern history of Mexico, as 38 candidates were murdered because of organized crime groups in the country. Even on the voting day (Sunday), two individuals died at polling stations in Puebla state.
An independent Latin America political risk analyst, Nathaniel Parish Flannery said, "Unless she commits to making a game-changing level of investment in improving policing and reducing impunity, Sheinbaum will likely struggle to achieve a significant improvement in overall levels of security."
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