London – Claudia Sheinbaum has been elected as Mexico’s first woman president in a historic win by at least 30 percent of the vote over her rival Xochitl Galvez in Sunday’s election.
According to the National Electoral Institute, responsible for organising the elections, the 61-year-old ruling party candidate had between 58.3% and 60.7% of the votes.
Mexico’s elections were the biggest ever and bloodiest in modern history after around 38 presidential candidates were assassinated.
The climate scientist, a former Mexico City mayor, has been eager and working on the same course as President Andres Manuel Lopez.
Sheinbaum has spoken about continuing and building on welfare programmes introduced by the former president whose popularity has been huge.
Sheinbaum, the first woman to win a general election in the U.S.A., Mexico, and Canada, will replace Andres Lopez Obrador on 1 October 2024.
The president-elect also highlighted that “for the first time in 200 years of Mexico, I will become the first woman president of Mexico.”
Sheinbaum said this was an achievement not just for her but for all women.
She vowed that her policies would include universal pensions for the elderly and programmes paying more youths in Mexico to undertake apprenticeships.
In addition, she will have a “friendly” relationship with the U.S.A. and “defend Mexicans in the U.S.A.”.
That said, Sheinbaum has a lot of work ahead of her, with a large budget deficit as well as low economic growth, to turn things around and turn promises into action.
She is also hoping to improve security but has not set out how she will do this.
Furthermore, since the ruling party has been on track to win both houses of Congress, this means the coalition can pass constitutional reforms.
