A historic first for Mexico: two women compete for the Presidency

MEXICO CITY – Mexico’s ruling party on Wednesday chose Claudia Sheinbaum, former mayor of Mexico City, as its candidate in next year’s presidential election, creating a defining moment in the world’s largest Spanish-speaking country, where Voters are expected to choose for the first time between two leading female candidates.

“Today democracy has won. Today the people of Mexico decided,” Sheinbaum said during the announcement, adding that his party, Morena, would win the 2024 elections. “Tomorrow the electoral process begins,” he said.

“And there is not a minute to lose.”

Sheinbaum, 61, a physicist with a doctorate in environmental engineering and a protégé of Mexico’s current president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, will face the opposition’s main contender, Xóchitl Gálvez, 60, an outspoken engineer of indigenous roots who She rose from poverty to become a technology entrepreneur.

President Andrés Manuel López Obrador is constitutionally limited to a six-year term. Photo Alejandro Cegarra for The New York Times

“Today we can already say: Mexico, by the end of next year, will be governed by a woman,” said Jesús Silva-Herzog Márquez, a political scientist at the Monterrey Institute of Technology, adding that it was an “extraordinary change” for the country.

Sheinbaum has built her political career mainly in the shadow of López Obrador, and from the beginning she emerged as the party’s favorite to succeed the current president.

That connection is believed to give him a crucial advantage heading into next year’s elections, thanks to the high approval ratings enjoyed by López Obrador, who is limited by the Mexican Constitution to a six-year term.

In recent months, López Obrador has insisted that he will not exert any influence when his term ends.

“I’m going to retire completely,” he said in March.

“I am not a cacique, much less do I feel irreplaceable. I am not a strong man; I am not a messiah.”

But some analysts say his influence will endure regardless of which candidate wins in 2024.

Ms. Sheinbaum would become Mexico’s first Jewish president if she wins the race. Photo Meghan Dhaliwal for The New York Times

Should Sheinbaum win, “there may be changes to certain policies, although the broad lines of his program will remain intact,” according to a recent report from the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington research institute.

If Sheinbaum is defeated, López Obrador “will not fade quietly into the background,” the report says, citing a large base of loyal supporters that allow him to wield substantial influence.

Some legacies of his administration – such as austerity measures or the immersion of the military in social, security and infrastructure functions – could also be obstacles for Gálvez if he tries to roll back his policies.

Although the two candidates focus on the pain points of their respective campaigns, they share some similarities.

Neither is explicitly feminist, both are socially progressive, have engineering degrees, and say they will maintain widely popular anti-poverty programs.

Both are in favor of decriminalizing abortion.

In the case of Gálvez, that position contrasts with that of his conservative party.

On Wednesday, Mexico’s Supreme Court decriminalized abortion nationwide, building on a previous ruling that gave authorities the authority to allow the procedure in each state.

Sheinbaum, born to Jewish parents in Mexico City, would become Mexico’s first Jewish president if she wins the election.

He has faced a disinformation campaign on social media falsely claiming that he was born in Bulgaria, the country from which his mother emigrated; Sheinbaum’s supporters have called this campaign anti-Semitic.

He studied physics and energy engineering in Mexico before completing his PhD at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California.

After entering politics, she became López Obrador’s top environmental official when he was mayor of Mexico City.

When Sheinbaum was elected mayor of the capital in 2018, she made public transport and environmental issues top priorities, but also drew criticism for deadly mishaps in the city’s transport systems, such as the collapse of a subway overpass. in which 26 people died.

With polls placing Sheinbaum as the favorite, her ties to López Obrador required discipline to maintain his support even when she disagreed with his decisions.

For example, when López Obrador downplayed the coronavirus pandemic and federal government officials changed data to avoid a lockdown in Mexico City, she remained silent.

“What has stood out is his loyalty, I think blind loyalty, to the president,” said Silva-Herzog Márquez, a political scientist.

However, while sticking to López Obrador’s policies, Sheinbaum has also flagged some potential changes, notably by voicing support for renewable energy sources.

Contrasts

In contrast to her rival, Gálvez, a senator who often commutes around Mexico City on an electric bicycle, has focused on her origins as the daughter of an indigenous Otomi father and a mestizo mother.

Xóchitl Gálvez, the main opposition candidate, has indigenous roots and rose from poverty to become a technology entrepreneur. Photo Claudio Cruz/Agence France-Presse

Gálvez grew up in a small town about two hours from Mexico City with no running water and speaking his father’s hñähñ.

After receiving a scholarship at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, she became an engineer and founded a company that designs communications and power networks for office buildings.

After Vicente Fox won the presidency in 2000, she was named head of the presidential office for Indigenous Peoples.

In 2018, Gálvez was elected senator representing the conservative National Action Party.

López Obrador has repeatedly made her the target of verbal attacks, which has had the effect of raising her profile throughout the country while also highlighting the influence that the president and his party wield throughout Mexico.

López Obrador, a combative leader who has embraced austerity measures while redoubling Mexico’s dependence on fossil fuels, looms over the campaign.

He vowed to end a long political tradition in which Mexican presidents chose their successors with their “big finger,” replacing the practice with nationwide voter polls.

Historically, political parties in Mexico selected their candidates in a mostly opaque manner and lacking much inclusion.

Manual selection was more common than a “free and fair competition for a candidacy,” said Flavia Freidenberg, a political scientist at the National Autonomous University of Mexico.

The new selection process has changed that tradition, but concerns remain about the lack of clarity and other irregularities that have been reported by some analysts and other presidential hopefuls.

Both the ruling Morena party and the broad opposition coalition, called the Broad Front for Mexico, used public opinion polls “that have not been fully transparent,” Freidenberg added, “and are not necessarily considered democratic procedures.”

new methods

The new procedures also ignored federal campaign regulations, and those in charge of the process in both the ruling party and the opposition moved up the selection by a few months and cryptically called Sheinbaum and Gálvez “coordinators” of each coalition instead of “ candidates”. “

“These irregular activities have occurred under the watchful eye of public opinion, the political class and the electoral authorities,” Freidenberg said.

“This is not a minor topic”.

Next year’s general election, in which voters will elect not only a president but also members of Congress, could also determine whether Mexico can return to a dominant party system, similar to what the country experienced under the once hegemonic Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI). , who held power without interruption for 71 years until the year 2000.

Despite some setbacks, there are signs that this is already happening.

In June, Morena’s candidate won the race for governor of the State of Mexico, the most populous state in the country, defeating the PRI candidate.

That victory raised the number of states under Morena’s control to 23 of 32 states, up from just seven at the start of the president’s term in 2018.

The question is “whether Morena reconfigures itself as a hegemonic party like the old PRI,” said Ana Laura Magaloni, a law professor who advised Sheinbaum’s campaign for mayor.

“And that depends on how much of a fight the opposition can put up.”

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