Claudia Sheinbaum Sworn In As First Feminine President Of Mexico

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Claudia Sheinbaum was sworn in Tuesday as Mexico’s first feminine president, driving the passion over her predecessor’s social packages but in addition dealing with challenges that embody stubbornly excessive ranges of violence.

After a smiling Sheinbaum took the oath of workplace on the ground of Congress, legislators shouted “Presidenta! Presidenta!” utilizing the female type of president in Spanish for the primary time in over 200 years of Mexico’s historical past as an impartial nation.

The 62-year-old scientist-turned-politician receives a rustic with quite a few instant issues, additionally together with a sluggish financial system, unfinished constructing packages, rising debt and the hurricane-battered resort metropolis of Acapulco.

In her inauguration speech, Sheinbaum stated that she got here to energy accompanied by the entire ladies who’ve struggled in anonymity to make their approach in Mexico, together with “those who dreamed of the possibility that one day no matter if we were born as women or men we would achieve our dreams and desires without our sex determining our destiny.”

She made a protracted listing of guarantees to restrict costs for gasoline and meals, broaden money hand-out packages for ladies and kids, assist enterprise funding, housing and passenger rail building. However any point out of the drug cartels that management a lot of the nation was temporary and close to the top of the listing.

Sheinbaum provided little change from former President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s ‘Hugs not Bullets’ technique of addressing root causes and never confronting the cartels, aside from pledging extra intelligence work and investigation. “There will be no return to the irresponsible drug war,” she stated.

Sheinbaum romped to victory in June with almost 60% of the vote, propelled largely by the sustained reputation of her political mentor, López Obrador. She has pledged to proceed all his insurance policies, even those who strengthened the facility of the army and weakened the nation’s checks and balances.

After the inauguration, Sheinbaum appeared at a mass rally in Mexico Metropolis’s colonial-era primary plaza to take part in a ceremony involving an all-women committee representing Mexico’s roughly 70 Indigenous teams.

Sheinbaum was blessed and brushed with herbs and incense by Ernestina Ortiz, a “spiritual guide,” who instructed Sheinbaum “You are a voice for all of us who had no voice for a long time.” An Indigenous elder then handed Sheinbaum a wood Indigenous “staff of authority,” like these carried by group leaders.

After the ceremony, Sheinbaum stated she would push for a complete ban on any public servant being re-elected to workplace — a tall promise, on condition that her occasion has now handed a legislation making all judges stand for election. That may counsel Mexico could have a brand new crop of inexperienced judges each few years.

Lucía Ruíz, a 42-year-old mom of three, was considered one of hundreds attempting to succeed in the principle sq. to see the rally. She stated she hopes Sheinbaum will be capable of fight excessive charges of violence in opposition to ladies within the nation.

“She is going to represent us,” stated Ruíz. “We have always been governed by men, and they think we’re incapable, but we’re not. We are the head of our families.”

López Obrador took workplace six years in the past declaring “For the good of all, first the poor,” and promising historic change from the neoliberal financial insurance policies of his predecessors. Sheinbaum promised continuity from his standard social insurance policies to controversial constitutional reforms to the judiciary and Nationwide Guard rammed by throughout his last days in workplace.

Regardless of her pledge of continuity, Sheinbaum is a really totally different character: a cautious scientist and ideological college leftist, versus the outgoing president’s chummy, everyman attraction.

“López Obrador was a tremendously charismatic president and many times that charisma allowed him to cover up some political errors that Claudia Sheinbaum will not have that possibility of doing,” stated Carlos Pérez Ricart, a political analyst at Mexico’s Heart for Financial Analysis and Educating. “So, where López Obrador was charismatic, Claudia Sheinbaum will have to be effective.”

She’s going to wield formidable energy as a result of López Obrador’s Morena occasion controls each homes of Congress. However the nation stays deeply polarized between the outgoing president’s fanatic followers and virtually one-third of the inhabitants who deeply resent him.

“If we want a strong government, the checks and balances also have to be strong,” stated opposition Sen. María Guadalupe Murguía, suggesting that an omnipotent military and unchecked ruling occasion might come again to hang-out Mexico. “Remember,” she stated, “nobody wins everything, and nobody loses forever.”

Sheinbaum just isn’t inheriting a simple scenario.

Drug cartels have strengthened their maintain over a lot of Mexico, and her first journey as president will likely be to the Pacific coast resort of Acapulco, which was flooded final week by Hurricane John, which killed at the very least 17 folks alongside the coast across the resort. Acapulco was devastated in October 2023 by Hurricane Otis, and had not recovered from that blow when John hit.

Sheinbaum should additionally take care of raging violence within the cartel-dominated northern metropolis of Culiacan, the place factional combating throughout the Sinaloa cartel broke out after drug lords Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada and Joaquín Guzmán López had been apprehended in america after they flew there in a small airplane on July 25.

López Obrador has lengthy sought to keep away from confronting Mexico’s drug cartels and has overtly appealed to the gangs to maintain the peace amongst themselves, however the limitations of that technique have turn out to be manifestly obvious in Culiacan, the capital of Sinaloa state, the place gun battles have raged on the town’s streets. Native authorities and even the military — which López Obrador has relied on for all the pieces — have basically admitted that the combating will solely finish when the cartel bosses determine to finish it.

However that’s solely the most recent hotspot.

Drug-related violence is surging from Tijuana within the north to Chiapas within the south, displacing hundreds.

Whereas Sheinbaum inherits an enormous finances deficit, unfinished building initiatives and a burgeoning invoice for her occasion’s money hand-out packages — all of which might ship monetary markets tumbling — maybe her greatest looming concern is the potential of a victory for Donald Trump within the Nov. 5 U.S. presidential election.

Trump has already vowed to slap 100% tariffs on automobiles made in Mexico. Although that will possible violate the present U.S.-Mexico-Canada commerce settlement, there are different issues Trump might do to make life troublesome for Sheinbaum, together with his pledge of large deportations.

Relations with Mexico’s northern neighbor had been already tense after López Obrador stated he was placing relations with the U.S. embassy “on pause” after public criticism of the proposed judicial overhaul.

At her inauguration, Sheinbaum boosted the free commerce settlement with america and Canada, saying “we know that economic cooperation strengthens the three nations.”

There are areas the place Sheinbaum might attempt to take Mexico in a brand new route. For instance, she has a Ph.D. in power engineering and has spoken of the necessity to deal with local weather change.

However on Tuesday, she stated she would cap oil manufacturing at 1.8 million barrels per day, which might be greater than what the troubled state-owned firm at the moment produces. “We are going to promote energy efficiency and the transition toward renewable sources of energy,” she stated.

Related Press writers María Verza, Megan Janetsky and Mark Stevenson in Mexico Metropolis contributed to this report.