Sixteen heads of state and representatives from more than 100 countries were present at the Legislative Palace of San Lázaro in Mexico City on Tuesday when Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo was sworn in as Mexico’s first female president.
Sheinbaum, the former mayor of Mexico City, won the June 2 election with nearly 36 million votes, 5.8 million more than the outgoing president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, and the most votes ever received by any presidential candidate in Mexican history.
The world leaders and dignitaries began arriving over the weekend, with Cuba’s president Miguel Díaz-Canel and Brazil’s Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva landing at Mexico City’s Felipe Ángeles International Airport (AIFA) on Sunday.
In addition to Lula, four other South American heads of state attended the historic inauguration: Gustavo Petro of Colombia; Gabriel Boric of Chile; Luis Alberto Arce of Bolivia; and Santiago Peña Palacios of Paraguay.
Colombia’s Petro provided big headlines on Monday with his declaration that Sheinbaum collaborated with the Movimiento 19 de Abril, an urban guerrilla group active in Colombia in the 1970s and 1980s, before it transitioned into a political party.
“Nobody believed that a member of M-19 could become president of Colombia,” he said in Mexico City. “And now M-19 has produced two presidents.”
Sheinbaum has not commented on Petro’s statement, but the Colombian president said Sheinbaum collaborated with the movement from abroad in Mexico.
Three Central American leaders — President Xiomara Castro of Honduras, President Bernardo Arévalo of Guatemala and Prime Minister John Briceño of Belize — and three African leaders — President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo of Ghana, Prime Minister Bucharaya Hamudi Sidina of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic and President Mohamed Yunus Al-Menfi of Libya — were also in attendance.
In addition, leaders of four Caribbean nations were witnesses to Sheinbaum’s inauguration.
Among the dignitaries seated in the gallery were Jill Biden, the first lady of the United States, and Ken Salazar, the U.S. ambassador to Mexico. They were joined by the Deputy Assistant to the President Carlos Elizondo, Health Secretary Xavier Becerra, Congresswoman Nanette Barragán of California, as well as Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut, Mayor of Tucson, Arizona, Regina Romero and Isabel Casillas Guzmán, the president of the U.S. Small Business Administration.
Speaking from the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City on Monday, Jill Biden said she and her husband wish President Sheinbaum the best and look forward to her leadership.
“With Dr. Sheinbaum as president, I know we’ll continue to build a more prosperous, secure and democratic region,” Biden said, adding that “few relationships are as important to the daily life of U.S. citizens as the one we have with Mexico.”
Other nations sending top officials to the ceremony were Canada (Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland) and Germany (former president Christian Wulff).
Spain chose not to send a delegation after the official invitation from Sheinbaum’s team omitted King Felipe VI.
With reports from Infobae, La Jornada, Expansión and Animal Político
