Mexico has its first female president: NPR

MEXICO CITY — Claudia Sheinbaum, an environmental scientist and former mayor of Mexico City, takes office as Mexico's 66th president on Tuesday first female leader. Sheinbaum, the won the election in June assumes the presidency in a landslide amid high expectations and enormous challenges, including endemic cartel violence and a large government deficit.

The people's political protégé Outgoing President Andrés Manuel López ObradorSheinbaum has a reputation for being analytical, disciplined and unflappable. She campaigned on the promise of continuing López Obrador's legacy – a complicated legacy that is difficult to pigeonhole ideologically. Supporters praise his popular social programs to help the poor; Critics accuse him of undermining the country's young democracy. Here are five things you should know about Sheinbaum:

She is Mexico's first female president

Sheinbaum's presidency marks two milestones: she is the first female president in Mexican history and also the first with Jewish heritage.

In a conservative country that has been led by men for more than two centuries, Sheinbaum's victory underscores this Progress that women have made in the political sphere. This is also notable given Mexico's problems with gender-based violence – the country has one of the highest rates of murder of women in the world. Sheinbaum said she would establish an anti-femicide prosecutor's office as president, a measure she already implemented as mayor of Mexico City. However, she has failed to elaborate on her position on abortion rights, and feminists criticized her campaign for a lack of gender-specific policies.

Sheinbaum's choice is also notable because of her Jewish origins. Her grandparents emigrated to Mexico from Lithuania and Bulgaria. Sheinbaum says she is proud of her heritage but not religiously affiliated.

Still, their rise is remarkable considering that Jews make up less than one percent of Jews in a country with a predominantly Catholic population, one of the largest in the world.

She is a climate scientist

The 62-year-old has a doctorate in energy engineering and studied at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in Northern California in the early 1990s. She was part of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change team that shared the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007 with former US Vice President Al Gore.

Sheinbaum began her political career as López Obrador's environment minister after being elected mayor of Mexico City in 2000. Since then, she has remained steadfastly loyal, even as he sidelined green energy projects and embraced fossil fuels to ensure energy independence.

Sheinbaum's environmental platform marks one of López Obrador's biggest pivots. It calls for more electric public transport, promoting the use and production of electric vehicles and the production of renewable energy through solar, wind and hydropower. Notably, López Obrador actively blocked renewable energy projects during his presidency.

At the same time, Sheinbaum praised one of López Obrador's most important initiatives: a new multibillion-dollar oil refinery called Dos Bocas. The project, which Sheinbaum praised as “majestic,” is plagued by cost overruns and is far from fully operational. How Sheinbaum will deal with the refinery remains unclear.

Mexico's President-elect Claudia Sheinbaum and outgoing President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador attend an anniversary event honoring victims of the 1985 and 2017 earthquakes at the Zocalo in Mexico City.

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Fernando Llano/AP/AP

She is Lopez Obrador's political protégé

Sheinbaum won the presidency largely because of her close ties to López Obrador. López Obrador, one of the most popular and controversial figures in Mexican history, introduced social programs that helped millions of people rise out of poverty while weakening democratic institutions and strengthening the military.

But while López Obrador is folksy and charismatic, Sheinbaum is seen as analytical and data-driven. Their differences have been highlighted during the COVID-19 pandemic.

While López Obrador downplayed the importance of testing and rushed into crowds, Sheinbaum expanded testing capacity in Mexico City and urged social distancing.

Broadly speaking, Sheinbaum has promised to further explain López Obrador's vision for Mexico. As a sign of her commitment, she appointed many of López Obrador's confidants to her cabinet, including his finance minister, his public security minister, his former foreign minister and his current foreign minister.

One of the challenges for Sheinbaum will be to create a political identity that is not directly tied to López Obrador.

It has a huge political mandate

Sheinbaum comes into office with a huge political mandate. Their political coalition has a supermajority in the lower house of Congress and almost two-thirds in the Senate.

But if López Obrador gave Sheinbaum political influence, he also presented her with major challenges. She also has to manage a growing budget deficit, fueled by his administration's spending on social programs, the Dos Bocas oil refinery and a huge tourist train project.

It also faces a changing system of government. One of López Obrador's last major acts as president was to push through a constitutional amendment to do this Remove all 7,000 Mexican judges from office. Under the change, judges will be elected rather than appointed, a reform López Obrador says is necessary to rid the judiciary of corruption and impunity.

Critics say the reform undermines the president's control of power and creates uncertainty in the business community, which in turn has caused the Mexican peso to plunge against the dollar. Sheinbaum's first tasks as president will include calming financial markets while overseeing the implementation of judicial reform.

Claudia Sheinbaum greets her supporters during a final rally for her presidential candidacy to represent the ruling MORENA party, August 26, 2023 in Mexico City.

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Sheinbaum's views on security and migration

During the presidential campaign, polls showed that security was the most important issue for voters in Mexico. Organized crime has become so powerful that they extort everything from gas stations to avocado farmers to trucking companies. Sheinbaum says she will focus on addressing the root causes of crime and violence, similar to López Obrador.

She has also pledged to increase the number of National Guard soldiers and create education and employment programs for youth.

While immigration is not an issue for voters in Mexico, it is a key concern for voters in the United States. Successive Republican and Democratic administrations have pressured Mexico to step up enforcement and prevent migrants from reaching the U.S. southern border. Political analysts say it is likely that Sheinbaum, like López Obrador, will work with the US to deter migration, especially because it has become a powerful stick in negotiations on other pressing issues such as trade deals.