Claudia Sheinbaum assumed office on Tuesday as Mexico’s first female president in the nation’s over 200 years of independence. The 62-year-old former Mexico City mayor and lifelong leftist ran her campaign on a promise of continuity and safeguarding and expanding her mentor, former President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s critical initiatives.
During the four months between her election and inauguration, she maintained this stance, supporting López Obrador on major and minor issues. However, Sheinbaum has a different approach; she values data and lacks López Obrador’s affable personal style. Mexico now anticipates whether she will emerge from his shadow.
U.S. First Lady Jill Biden led an American delegation to Sheinbaum’s inauguration ceremony. President Biden offered his congratulations and said in a statement, “Mexico and the United States are strong partners and close neighbors, and we share deep political, economic, and cultural ties. The United States is committed to continuing to work with Mexico to deliver the democratic, prosperous, and secure future that the people of our two countries deserve.”
Claudia Sheinbaum’s background
Sheinbaum’s background is in science. She has a Ph.D. in energy engineering. Her brother is a physicist. In a 2023 interview with The Associated Press, Sheinbaum said, “I believe in science.”
Observers say that grounding showed itself in Sheinbaum’s actions as mayor during the COVID-19 pandemic when her city of some 9 million people took a different approach from what López Obrador espoused at the national level.
When the virus was rapidly spreading, Sheinbaum set limits on businesses’ hours and capacity and expanded its testing regimen. She also publicly wore masks and urged social distancing.
She comes from an older, more solidly left tradition that predates López Obrador’s nationalistic, populist movement.
Colombia’s President, Gustavo Petro, dropped a bit of a bombshell before Sheinbaum’s inauguration, telling reporters she had been a sympathizer of Colombia’s leftist guerrilla group, M-19 — the group that Petro himself once belonged to — and that she helped out exiled rebel fighters when they passed through Mexico. “A lot of Mexicans came to help us, including Claudia.”
While Sheinbaum’s office did not immediately respond to queries about Petro’s comments, the idea is not improbable: Sheinbaum comes from a far more traditionally ‘leftist’ background than López Obrador and has herself said she belonged to several leftist youth groups during her university years, at a time when they would have supported rebel groups in Central America and South America.
Her parents were leading activists in Mexico’s 1968 student movement, which ended tragically in a government massacre of hundreds of student demonstrators in Mexico City’s Tlatelolco plaza just days before the Summer Olympics opened there that year.
Sheinbaum is also the first president with a Jewish background in the largely Catholic country.
Sheinbaum led wire to wire and won convincingly in June with almost 60% of the vote, about double the number of her nearest competitor, Xóchitl Gálvez.
As López Obrador’s chosen successor, she enjoyed the boost of his high popularity throughout his six years in office.
The opposition’s coalition led by Gálvez struggled to gain traction, while support for the governing party was carried over to Congress. Voters gave Morena and its allies margins that allowed them to pass critical constitutional changes before López Obrador left office.
Before the controversial constitutional overhaul of Mexico’s judiciary, which will make all judges eligible for election, passed, Sheinbaum stood with López Obrador, who had pushed it.
