Claudia Sheinbaum, a , U. S. educated scholar- turned- politician, was elected Sunday as , Mexico ‘s , second female president, shattering female barriers in a country known for a culture of machismo and higher rates of , violence against women.
” In 200 years of the Mexican nation, I have become the first person leader”, she told supporters in her embrace talk, describing her success as a win for all people. ” I did not appear alone”, she said. ” We all arrived”.
The communist former governor of , Mexico City, Sheinbaum, 62, will also become the primary leader of Jewish heritage in this largely Catholic country.
She will take the place of a successful but divided country that has recently experienced popular gang violence. And she will be carefully watching to see how she can get past her long darkness, which will soon be the president’s replacement Andrés Manuel López Obrador.
Sheinbaum was elected in landslide fashion, according to preliminary vote counts, which showed her winning with 58 % of the vote compared with 30 % for her closest rival, Xóchitl Gálvez , Ruiz.
A powerful businesswoman, Gálvez ran a passionate campaign representing an , opposition coalition,  , but who eventually could not defeat the well- waxed machinery of Morena, Sheinbaum’s democratic party. Trailing in third behind the women was Jorge Álvarez Máynez, a member of , Congress.
Sheinbaum is the protege and hand- picked successor of López Obrador, who founded Morena in 2011 and who has since transformed it into a political behemoth that has drawn comparisons to the , Institutional Revolutionary Party, which ruled , Mexico , in autocratic fashion for most of the 20th century.
López Obrador, who is a constitutionally repressive figure, faces a polarizing situation: supporters laud him for lifting millions of people out of poverty, while critics criticize him for defying democratic standards and failing to end cartel violence.
Many people viewed the election as a referendum on his term, even though López Obrador did not appear on the ballot.
Many Sheinbaun supporters said they believed she would advance López Obrador’s trademark anti- poverty policies, particularly his government’s welfare payments to students and elderly people.
” She is going to continue with all the help that the president has given us”, said , Rosa Maria Velazco, a 52- year- old teacher. ” She will continue to support the poorest”.
Gálvez supporters, on the other hand, largely said they backed her because she promised to change the course set by López Obrador.
” I’m very angry at this government”, said Julieta Jujnovsky, 45, a professor of biology.
She said she did n’t oppose López Obrador’s ideology so much as his style of governing. ” He does n’t want any opposition”, said Jujnovsky, who described the president’s efforts to reform the , Supreme Court, slash the number of seats in , Mexico ‘s , legislature and overhaul the country’s elections institute as part of a “deterioration” of , Mexico ‘s , democracy. Democracy depends on listening to the other side and counterweights, she said.
One of the many questions that looms over her presidency is how Sheinbaum will manage to mend the divisions that are so obvious during López Obrador’s term. And while López Obrador has vowed to leave the political fray that has dominated his entire adult life, many people are unsure whether he will actually stay out of it.
Sheinbaum, for her part, has dismissed such questions as misogynist.
In a nation where women were prohibited from voting up until 1954, her victory was a ground-breaking development.
Her success is in some ways the product of years of efforts by Mexican authorities to legalize gender equality in a country where politics was primarily dominated by men. A 2019 constitutional amendment established gender parity requirements for all elected positions at the federal, state, and municipal levels.
Today, more than half of the members of , Mexico ‘s , congress are women, the fourth highest rate in the world. Eight of the nation’s 31 governors are female and a woman heads the , Supreme Court.
Some voters expressed wonderment that , Mexico , had elected a female leader before much of the rest of the world, including , the United States.
” Never in my entire life did I imagine that a woman would be president of my country”, said Cristina Navarrete Santillán, 76, who voted for Sheinbaum in , Mexico City  , alongside her two daughters and two granddaughters. ” I’m happy to be alive to see it,” he said.
Sunday’s election was  , Mexico ‘s , largest ever, with voters also choosing a new , Congress, eight state governors, the , Mexico City  , mayor and some 20, 000 local office- holders nationwide.
Preliminary results indicated that Morena performed well in the congressional elections and would likely have a super majority that would make it possible for it to pass legislation as a result of its membership in a coalition with two allies.
In , the United States, which is home to nearly 11 million people born in , Mexico, migrants who in the past were able only to vote in Mexican elections by mail could vote for the first time in person at consulates.
Long lines of voters stretched for blocks in cities that included , Chicago , and , Orlando, Fla.  , In , Los Angeles, the line at the , Mexican Consulate , in , MacArthur Park , wrapped around the block twice, with some people arriving as early as , 4 a. m.
As mariachi music blared, voters draped in Mexican flags patiently waited.
Laura Torres, who arrived with a group from , Oxnard, said she had waited six hours to vote and would wait another six if necessary. The group planned to vote for Sheinbaum.
In some parts of , Mexico, voters also lined up before dawn.
That was the case in the middle- class neighborhood of , San Andres Totoltepec, where Sheinbaum, an environmental engineer by training, was reared and where she voted early Sunday.
As the candidate took her place in a line of about 100 people to cast her ballot, the crowd broke out in chants of” Presidenta”!
Sheinbaum, an environmental engineer, spent much of her career as an academic, although she was raised in a highly political family.
Both of her parents participated in the 1968 student movement, which is best remembered for the infamous Tlatelolco massacre, which saw the death of numerous protesters in the capital by Mexican security forces. Her first husband was a leftist politican.
When López Obrador was elected mayor of , Mexico City  , in 2000, he launched Sheinbaum’s political career by making her secretary of environment for the capital.
She later joined his breakaway political group, the , National Regeneration Movement, known as Morena, and was elected in 2015 as borough president of , Tlalpan, a district in southern , Mexico City.
Three years later, she was elected mayor of , Mexico City  , and he was elected president in a landslide victory for Morena.
López Obrador vowed to put the “poor first” in a nation he claimed had been ruled by a corrupt and conservative elite. López Obrador’s approval rating still tops 60 %, making him one of the most popular leaders in , Latin America.
When he departs office in October, he will leave his successor with a strong economy that has been bolstered by the relocation of foreign firms from , Asia , and elsewhere to , Mexico. The Mexican peso has been among the world’s strongest currencies.
But the next president will also inherit a number of crises, including , dire water shortages, a struggling , healthcare system, stubborn inequality and violence from criminal gangs and cartels so severe that the , U. S. State Department , warns its citizens not to travel to many Mexican states.
Although homicide rates have decreased in some of the past six years, López Obrador’s controversial “hugs not bullets” strategy has failed to stop the country’s violence. It prioritizes social programs for the young over direct confrontations with cartels. Security is by far Mexicans ‘ main concern, polls show.
Many voters on both sides of the political divide were thrilled to have the chance to cast a woman’s ballot, despite the fact that the candidates had a polarized political base.
Fewer than a third of the countries in the , United Nations , have ever had a female leader, according to a , Pew Research Center , analysis from last year.
Rosa Maria Beltrán, a 39- year- old dentist who voted for Sheinbaum, said she was proud of her country.
” Tell the people in , the United States , that in , Mexico , we are going to have a female president before them”, she said.
Cecilia Sánchez Vidal , in , Mexico City  , and , Anthony De Leon , and , Dania Maxwell , in , Los Angeles , contributed to this report.
This story originally appeared in , Los Angeles Times.
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