Claudia Sheinbaum, who this Sunday became the first woman to preside over Mexico, gave a speech in which she celebrated the overwhelming victory she obtained at the polls and offered to govern under the sign of reconciliation. From the hotel that served as a bunker for her campaign team, Sheinbaum has sent a message of gratitude to the millions of citizens who have given her their vote and at the same time endorsed the project of Andrés Manuel López Obrador, the president. outgoing. With the same conciliatory tone, the former head of Government of Mexico City also thanked the defeated candidates, The conference. There was also space to thank President López Obrador for his congratulatory call. Moments before, the president posted a video on networks in which he celebrated the enormous citizen participation in the elections (around 60%) and said that Sheinbaum will also be the most voted president in Mexican history, a title that he himself had earned. in 2018.
The room was packed with journalists, campaign collaborators and family members, including her mother, Annie Pardo, and her husband, Jesús María Tarriba. “Today we demonstrate that Mexico is a democratic country, with peaceful and very participatory elections. I am also grateful because, for the first time in 200 years of the Republic, I will become the first female president of Mexico,” said the elected president. In the room, the contained joy of the Morenistas exploded: “President, president, president!” they shouted at her. She responded: “I did not arrive alone, we all arrived, with our heroines who gave us our homeland, with our ancestors, our mothers, our daughters and our granddaughters.” Sheinbaum will be the president of a country where more than half of the population is made up of women (64 million people) and where sexist violence kills 10 of them a day.
The brunette had plenty of reasons to celebrate. This Sunday’s vote gave the ruling party, the Morena coalition with the PT and the PVEM, the qualified majority in the Chamber of Deputies (two-thirds of Congress). In the absence of final results in the Senate, the ruling alliance is close to being able to approve constitutional reforms without having to negotiate with the opposition, reduced to historic lows. The Morenistas themselves did not expect that the results of the vote would be so beneficial, according to versions collected by this newspaper. The overwhelming victory took even those at home by surprise.
Embracing the comfortable victory, the future president offered to govern including people who do not agree with her proposals. “We conceive of a plural, diverse and democratic Mexico. We know that dissent is part of democracy and, although the majority of the people supported our project, our duty is and will always be to look after each of the Mexicans without distinction. Although many Mexicans do not fully agree with our project, we will have to walk in peace and harmony to continue building a fair and more prosperous Mexico.”
Sheinbaum’s victory guarantees the continuity of the left at the head of power in Mexico for at least another six years. The candidate has opted for the continuity of López Obrador’s policies and deepening the scope of the Fourth Transformation, as the leader baptized his six-year term, in reference to the Mexican revolutions. Sheinbaum has outlined the first steps of her Administration, which officially begins on October 1. “Our government will be honest, without influence, without corruption, or impunity.” In economic matters, she has assured that the autonomy of the central bank will be respected, there will be fiscal discipline and budgetary austerity. “We will maintain the obligatory division between economic power and political power.”
He presented his future government as a guarantee, attached to the laws and the Right. And he assured that he will reinforce public investment in social programs to expand rights and services such as education, health, housing and culture: “That is, we are going to continue building a true welfare state.” In terms of foreign policy, he said that he will continue the doctrine of not intervening in the internal affairs of nations. He also supported the continuity of López Obrador’s security policy, based on addressing the causes of poverty, maintaining military command of the National Guard and reforming the Judiciary. Violence rates have decreased slightly, but remain at very high levels: more than 30,000 people are murdered each year.
Some of the candidate’s projects require Morena and her allies from the PT and PVEM to obtain a qualified majority in Congress, a political strategy that López Obrador baptized as “Plan C.” Judicial reform falls into that bag, which aims for federal judges to be elected by popular vote; the reform to eliminate several autonomous bodies, and the reform to redesign the National Electoral Institute (INE). It will depend on the final results in the Senate. If so, the current Government’s plan is for them to be carried out in September, the last month of the López Obrador Government.
Sheinbaum’s path to victory has not been easy. Last year he participated in an internal contest in Morena for the presidential candidacy, and left behind several heavyweights of the cherry party, especially Marcelo Ebrard, former head of government of the capital and former Foreign Secretary of López Obrador. Morena declared her the winner after applying a national survey. Although the internal process was led by López Obrador to ward off divisions, Sheinbaum assumed the scar operation, he called the defeated and included them in his campaign team in strategic places. Today they were at the victory event, applauding the winner.
The elected president has always been active on the left, unlike many leading Morena cadres (López Obrador himself was part of the old PRI). Sheinbaum played a leading role in the UNAM student movements of the 1970s and later joined the PRD, a party founded by Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas and other leftist leaders. She collaborated in the López Obra
dor Government in Mexico City (2000-2006) as Minister of the Environment, and was part of the civil protests led by the leader for the alleged fraud of the 2006 presidential elections. López Obrador founded Morena (Movimiento of National Regeneration) in 2014 and the following year he went to his first elections against the veteran parties, the PRI, the PAN and the PRD.
In 2015, Sheinbaum became mayor of Tlalpan, one of the capital’s 16 districts, in one of Morena’s first electoral victories. In 2018, riding the cherry wave that brought López Obrador to the presidency, she became head of Government of Mexico City. That triumph was also historic, since she was the first woman elected to govern the capital. Her closest collaborators told this newspaper that Sheinbaum is an official who makes decisions based on data and scientific evidence, without rushing and listening to the opinions of her team.
Starting this Monday, the transition process begins, the change of hands of the Administration between the outgoing Government and the team that will take over. López Obrador has said that he will retire from public life at the end of his term, a gesture with which he will clear the way for Sheinbaum, who for a long time was doubted about how independent he would be with respect to the leftist leader. The president-elect said in an interview with this newspaper that her leadership will be different from that of López Obrador and that she will, of course, exercise the government herself, without the patriarch’s long shadow projecting over her.
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