'Presidenta': Sheinbaum Makes History In Mexico

Claudia Sheinbaum seems poised to cement her historic victory as Mexico's first female president with a supermajority in congress that would let her party pass legislation and budgets unopposed - and perhaps even change the constitution without need for compromise.

- Thomas Graham

Sheinbaum, a 61-year-old climate scientist and former mayor of Mexico City, won the presidency with 59.5% of the vote, according to a rapid sample count by Mexico's electoral authority.

During the campaign Sheinbaum portrayed herself as a continuity candidate, vowing to keep the policies of her populist predecessor, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, known popularly as Amlo, who founded the Morena party in 2014 and forged a bond with voters disenchanted with democracy.

López Obrador was constitutionally unable to run again but chose Sheinbaum as his successor, and she appears to have won 5m votes more than he did six years ago.

"In the 200 years of the republic, I will become the first woman president of Mexico," Sheinbaum told supporters in a victory speech late on Sunday, to loud cheers of "presidenta, presidenta"- the feminine form of the country's top political post. Thanks in part to a constitutional amendment that set the goal of gender parity in all races for elected office and in appointments for top jobs in government, women now hold half the seats in Mexico's congress and almost half the jobs in cabinet and one-third of the governorships.

Activists will hope to see this prominence of female leaders translate into policy.

In 2023, Mexico's supreme court ruled that prohibiting abortion was unconstitutional, but this has been slow to manifest in safe and accessible abortion at the state level. Meanwhile, gender-based violence continues to rise.