Claudia Sheinbaum made history this week by winning a landslide election to become Mexico’s first female president. A leftwing climate scientist, Ms Sheinbaum appears a technocrat with progressive views, everything her presidential predecessor, the folksy populist Andrés Manuel López Obrador, known as Amlo, was not.
Yet the differences may be more about style than substance. Ms Sheinbaum has been by Mr López Obrador’s side for two decades, and has a deserved reputation for hard work, fidelity to her mentor and a thirst for social justice. One of the big questions for the new president is whether her win will translate into more political rights and protections for women, 11 of whom are murdered a day.
Ms Sheinbaum, the Catholic country’s first Jewish president, beat her female opponent by almost 30 percentage points. She is unlikely to veer away from the redistributive programme of Mr López Obrador. He doubled the minimum wage, expanded pensions and made it easier to join unions. This proved popular in a country beset by poverty and inequality. Mr López Obrador’s National Regeneration Movement (Morena) built its support among the ranks of Mexico’s poor, who at this election overlooked the death toll of cartel violence, the erosion of democratic institutions and creeping military control over the economy.
Mexico’s election matters beyond its borders. Controlling illegal migration and the flow of drugs and guns between Mexico and the US will be part of the American presidential campaign. Bombing illegal fentanyl factories in Mexico was a Republican talking point last year. Yet the two nations have drawn closer as US firms shift operations out of China. Last year, the US bought more goods from Mexico than China for the first time in 20 years.
The stunning electoral win leaves Morena a whisker away from clinching a supermajority – two‑thirds of the seats – in the country’s congress. With horse‑trading, Ms Sheinbaum will be able to enact radical constitutional reforms that Mr López Obrador announced earlier this year. These include cutting the number of lawmakers, electing judges and mandating annual increases in minimum wage above inflation.
A contributor to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s reports, Ms Sheinbaum has been criticised for backing plans for the state oil company, Pemex, to boost refinery capacity and increase oil production. This appears a pragmatic move to finance the country’s budget deficit and is offset by her determination to reinvest proceeds in green technologies under a state-led energy transition. Ms Sheinbaum differentiated herself from Mr López Obrador when he was Mexico’s president and she ran the country’s capital. Mr López Obrador refused to wear a face mask during the pandemic, while she offered free, widespread testing and required face masks on public transport. Mr López Obrador’s “hugs not bullets” policy did not bring down Mexico’s murder rate from 30,000 killings a year. She halved it in Mexico City by targeting high-crime areas.
The politics of Mexico are bracing and troubling. It is welcome to see a party embrace poverty reduction and state empowerment. However, Mr López Obrador presented himself as a messianic figure who could rescue the poor – through his honesty and “republican austerity” – from deceitful politicians and their neoliberal, corrupt schemes that benefit the affluent. What happens when a charismatic leader leaves office? Ms Sheinbaum’s presidential term will provide an answer.
