Claudia Sheinbaum becomes Mexico's first female president

Claudia Sheinbaum, a climate scientist who jumped from academia to the fraught world of politics, is set to be sworn in on Tuesday as Mexico's first female president.

She takes office at a turbulent time worldwide and in Mexico, where she faces the perennial issues of violence and migration as well as the enormous expectations raised by her popular predecessor, Andrés Manuel López Obrador.

In Mexico – a country with a long tradition of machismo – women did not gain the right to vote until 1953. Today they are heavily represented across the political spectrum, from city councils to governorships to Congress.

That shift was underscored by the election of Sheinbaum, a leftist who won in a landslide in the June 2 statewide vote. She will be Mexico's 66th president since independence from Spain in 1821, serving a single six-year term, as required by Mexican mandate law.

Sheinbaum, the granddaughter of immigrants from Eastern Europe, will also be the first person of Jewish descent to serve as president of a predominantly Roman Catholic nation.

She is a protégé of López Obrador, who brought her out of academic anonymity to become his environment minister in 2000, when he was mayor of Mexico City.

Under his leadership, Sheinbaum was elected mayor of the capital district of Tlalpan and mayor of Mexico City in 2018, the same year López Obrador assumed the presidency.

The transfer of power is scheduled to take place on Tuesday after a heavily planned, two-hour morning ceremony in Mexico's Congress attended by heads of state from around the world, including the leaders of Brazil, Colombia, Chile and Guatemala – all allies of López Obrador, a longtime standard-bearer of the Mexican left.

First lady Jill Biden (left) arrives with U.S. Ambassador Ken Salazar at the American Embassy in Mexico City on September 30, 2024, a day before the inauguration of Mexican President-elect Claudia Sheinbaum.

(Fernando Llano/Associated Press)

President Biden will not be in attendance, but First Lady Jill Biden is expected to be present. California Governor Gavin Newsom is also expected to be there.

At around 11 a.m. Mexico City time, Sheinbaum will put on the presidential symbolic sash – embroidered with the Mexican tricolor and embossed with the national coat of arms interspersed with gold thread. She will speak later in Mexico City zócaloor central place.

Sheinbaum ran under the banner of the ruling National Regeneration Movement, known as Morena, a party registered by López Obrador just a decade ago that quickly became the country's dominant political force.

The party has a de facto supermajority in the Mexican Congress and in governorships in 24 of 32 Mexican states.

Sheinbaum has vowed to continue the sweeping “transformation” promised by her predecessor, who significantly expanded welfare benefits for students and the elderly, increased the military's power and pushed for a series of controversial constitutional reforms. Among them is an incendiary plan to elect federal judges that has sparked nationwide protests.

Among the challenges the new president will face is perhaps none greater than the growing power of organized crime, which controls much of the country and has expanded from cross-border drug trafficking to extortion, kidnapping and other schemes.

Some observers worry that her predecessor's heavy spending on social programs and huge infrastructure projects could land her government in dire economic straits. But Mexico benefits from its proximity to the United States and the presence of manufacturers focused on exporting to its northern neighbor.

The new president will also have to deal with the ongoing challenge of illegal immigration as Mexico has become a major transit point for U.S.-bound migrants from around the world.

Although López Obrador is often critical of U.S. policies, he worked closely with Washington and the Biden and Trump administrations to crack down on illegal migration, using police and soldiers to turn back migrants from the U.S.-Mexico border. Sheinbaum is widely expected to continue this collaboration in a US election year in which immigration has become a dominant campaign issue.

President Andrés Manuel López Obrador waves during his final morning news conference, the Mañanera, at the National Palace in Mexico City on September 30, 2024.

(Fernando Llano/Associated Press)

Towering over her presidency is the imposing figure of 70-year-old López Obrador, who has vowed to retreat to his family ranch in the southern state of Chiapas and stay out of the political strife that has consumed his adult life. He leaves office with an approval rating of over 70% – much of it from poor and working-class Mexicans who have seen increases in the minimum wage, pensions and welfare payments under his leadership. But the country is deeply divided over his often polarizing statements and style.

Sheinbaum has dismissed any suggestion that she could be a puppet for her retired mentor.

“They make things up as if I were in the shadow of López Obrador,” she told Spanish newspaper El País. “That's not true. I am the person who will rule.”

She is widely seen as a pragmatist who lacks the charisma, oratorical skills and combative nature of the outgoing populist president. She says her scientific background will serve her well when dealing with issues such as energy, which have been a source of contention here. López Obrador has focused on reviving the moribund state oil giant Pemex, while investing little in alternative energy sources.

“I've always said that as a scientist you always have to ask why and look for solutions,” Sheinbaum said in an interview with the Los Angeles Times last year. “And something similar happens in politics.”

After her election in June, she described her victory as a victory for all women.

“I didn’t arrive alone,” she told her supporters in her acceptance speech. “We’ve all arrived.”

Claudia Sheinbaum, second from right, poses for a photo after she was confirmed as the winner of the presidential election during a ceremony at the Federal Electoral Court in Mexico City on August 15, 2024.

(Fernando Llano/Associated Press)

More than half of congressmen and nearly a third of governors are women, and a woman heads the Supreme Court – a political shift driven by a law that requires political parties to ensure that at least 50% of all Candidates are female candidates in federal, state and local elections.

As one of three siblings, Sheinbaum comes from Mexico City. Her late father was a businessman and chemical engineer and her mother is a biologist and prominent academic.

Her parents were active in the 1968 student movement, best known for the infamous Tlatelolco massacre, in which Mexican security forces killed scores of protesters in the capital.

As a high school student, Sheinbaum took part in protests against the exclusion of students, many of whom were poor, from higher education. While studying at the Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), she was part of a movement against a plan to increase the public institution's fees.

She studied physics there and later completed her doctorate for four years at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California.

Last year, Sheinbaum married Jesús María Tarriba, a physicist who works in the private banking sector. She has a daughter from a previous marriage.

There was anticipation on the streets of the Mexican capital on Monday, especially among women.

“I hope that the new president will be able to unite people and end all hatred in society,” said Rosa María García, 58, a school secretary. “I trust that as a woman she will do a good job in uniting people, managing the economy – and most importantly, making this country less violent.”

Special correspondent Cecilia Sanchez Vidal in Mexico City contributed to this report.