Claudia Sheinbaum during a press conference in Mexico City, June 3, 2024, after announcing her victory in the Mexican presidential election. EYEPIX/NURPHOTO VIA AFP
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Portrait At 61, this left-wing scientist, who triumphed on Sunday with a score of almost 60%, succeeds the very popular Andrés Manuel López Obrador at the head of the country. Former mayor of Mexico City, she will govern under the watchful eye of millions of fans of her predecessor from whom she will take over on October 1.
1. History
In a Mexico that is still very macho, the election of Claudia Sheinbaum, who won an overwhelming victory at the end of the presidential election on June 2, winning nearly 60% of the votes, crowns the efforts of a coalition of female politicians, activists, lawyers and academics who pressured parliamentarians to adopt quotas for women candidates for Congress, then for elected offices and key positions in the executive and judicial branches.
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2. Scientist
His mother was a biology teacher, his father, a chemist and small entrepreneur. Her brother is a physicist, she has a doctorate in energy engineering. “I believe in science”she confided, which is reflected in her obsession with basing her decisions on data.
3. Atheist
The granddaughter of European Jews who arrived in Mexico several decades ago, she has never declared her Jewishness, is of no faith and her family is not religious. His election still constitutes a first in a country with around 40,000 Jews (and 30,000 Palestinians). She will undoubtedly take up the neutral position of her predecessor on the war in Gaza.
4. 1968
She grew up in a middle-class home south of Mexico City. In the midst of the student revolt of 1968, his parents kept a copy of “Capital” hidden in a cupboard. “She herself was a student activist, she is someone who has more radical, more leftist thinking than López Obrador [le président sortant, NDLR] »estimates Jorge Castañeda, Minister of Foreign Affairs under Vicente Fox from 2000 to 2003.
5. Left
His predecessor does not speak English and does not like traveling abroad. She completed four years of postdoctoral research in Berkeley, California, and her sister and daughter live in the United States. She is often seen as embodying a left that is more technocratic than rooted in the past.
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6. IPCC
She was part of the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) when this UN body received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007. It was her expertise in the matter that led Andrés Manuel López Obrador (known as “AMLO”) to recruit her to the town hall of Mexico City (she was subsequently mayor of the capital, from 2018 to 2023), but today she is careful not to criticize the national oil company Pemex.
7. “AMLO”
Without López Obrador, she would never have been a candidate for the National Regeneration Movement (Morena), the party he founded. Sheinbaum owes him everything, politically, which means she is accused of being a puppet. But Mexican presidents have a lot of power and it is unlikely that she will continue to “stick to his wheel”…
Claudia Sheinbaum and Andrés Manuel López Obrador during a meeting in Mexico City, July 2019. FERNANDO LLANO/AP/SIPA
8. Under surveillance
Claudia Sheinbaum, who will take office on 1er October, will be under close surveillance from the Obradorist base, which devotes a cult to the outgoing president comparable to that of millions of Americans for Donald Trump. “AMLO” promised to play the role of the peaceful retiree. But in the event of a major falling out with his heir apparent, he could orchestrate dismissal proceedings.
9. Counter-powers
López Obrador did everything to weaken the democratic counter-powers. In particular, he wanted to directly elect federal judges, but his coalition did not have the two-thirds supermajorities in the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate to modify the Constitution. Sheinbaum has promised to continue these efforts and should have this majority. According to still provisional results from the National Electoral Institute, the Morena party and its allies would obtain between 346 and 380 seats out of 500 in the Chamber and 76 and 88 seats out of 128 in the Senate.
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10. Violence
Ten feminicides per day, one person disappears every hour… Mexico is ravaged by macho violence and that of gangs and cartels, a problem exploited by López Obrador to make the army play a leading role, including economically. A dangerous legacy for the new president.
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By Philippe Boulet-Gercourt
