Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo was elected as Mexico’s first female president in a landslide on Sunday, delivering another six-year term of government to the Morena party founded by President Andrés Manuel López Obrador.
Sheinbaum — who campaigned heavily on her commitment to build on the so-called “fourth transformation” of Mexico initiated by the current president — attracted 58-60% of the vote, according to “quick count” results announced by the president of the National Electoral Institute (INE) Guadalupe Taddei late Sunday.
Her main rival, Xóchitl Gálvez of a three-party opposition bloc, was around 30 points behind with 26-28% of the vote.
Jorge Álvarez Máynez, candidate for the Citizens Movement party, attracted about 10% of the vote.
Sheinbaum celebrated her comprehensive victory with an appearance after 1 a.m. Monday in the Zócalo, Mexico City’s central square.
“I feel excited and grateful for the recognition [the Mexican people] have given to the fourth transformation of public life in Mexico,” she said.
Sheinbaum, a former mayor of Mexico City, noted that it was the first time a woman had been elected president of Mexico since the country became independent more than 200 years ago.
Supporters responded with chants of “presidenta, presidenta,” the female form of the Spanish word for president.
Sheinbaum subsequently acknowledged a number of female Mexican trailblazers who preceded her, including independence insurgent Josefa Ortiz de Domínguez.
She also recognized “all the anonymous Mexican women” who have “built the homeland.”
Sheinbaum, 61, will be sworn in as president on Oct. 1 for a six-year term that will end in 2030. She is also the country’s first Jewish head of state.
Tens of millions of Mexicans voted across Mexico and from abroad on Sunday in what were the country’s largest ever elections. As of Monday morning, voter participation nationally was estimated to be 60.1% according to the INE.
The result in the presidential contest was a strong endorsement of the presidency of López Obrador, who took office in 2018 after the scandal-plagued term of the Institutional Revolutionary Party’s Enrique Peña Nieto.
AMLO, as the president is best known, is a polarizing figure in Mexico, but has retained strong support throughout his six-year term. He created Morena around a decade ago and it has since become Mexico’s dominant political force, governing the majority of the country’s 32 states.
Sheinbaum, a close ally and political protege of the president, has pledged to continue and strengthen López Obrador’s policies and programs, including the provision of welfare and social programs that have helped lift millions of Mexicans out of poverty.
Gálvez, an Indigenous Otomí woman and former senator, quickly became one of Mexico’s best-known politicians after announcing her presidential run and winning the nomination of the National Action Party (PAN), the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) and the Democratic Revolution Party.
While she won the support of millions of Mexicans, many others were clearly not prepared to vote for parties — namely the PRI and the PAN — that have previously held power and are associated with ills such as corruption and high levels of violence.
Mexicans on Sunday also voted to renew both houses of federal Congress and to elect thousands of state and municipal representatives including a new Mexico City mayor and the governors of nine states.
Morena and its allies — the Labor Party (PT) and the Green Party (PVEM) — were on track to win majorities in both houses of federal Congress and also came out on top in many other key contests, including in the Mexico City mayoral election, according to preliminary results.
Mexico News Daily
