Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum vows ‘it’s time for women’

The passing of the presidential sash every six years is an important and symbolic event in Mexico.

But on Tuesday, when it was placed on the shoulder of Claudia Sheinbaum – the first woman to hold the highest office in the country – it was a truly historic moment in more than 200 years of modern Mexican history.

It’s been a long road that has led to the first female mayor of Mexico City breaking the glass ceiling in Mexican politics, this time at the national level.

With the great joy of the “President!” crying inside and outside the congress house, he raised his fist in victory, enjoying the moment.

He began his first speech as president by thanking his political mentor and predecessor in the top job, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, calling him “the most important political leader and social hero in the modern history of Mexico”.

He is leaving the post, he said, “with great love for his people”.

On that point, he is not wrong. López Obrador is very popular with his supporters and his popularity ratings in his final days in office were higher than any other president in Mexican history.

He’s undoubtedly leaving some very big shoes to fill, but President Sheinbaum was quick to stress that he wasn’t worried.

“It’s time for women,” he said to the applause of the ruling party’s lawyers. “Women have come to shape the destiny of our beautiful nation.”

As he laid out his presidential agenda, it became clear once again that López Obrador’s vision for Mexico provided a broad blueprint.

He urged people to evaluate – using hard facts – what has been achieved in the last six years.

“How are 9.5 million Mexicans lifted out of poverty?” he asked.

“How did unemployment decrease? Greater welfare created? The minimum wage has risen repeatedly, but not inflation?”

His conclusion was simple: by using “Mexican Humanism” – the name he gave to the political project he shared with his mentor, López Obrador, for the better part of twenty years.

Naturally, his opponents will dispute the positive picture of the Mexican economy that he paints.

But Sheinbaum promised to “integrate the health service into a high-quality public health care system” and create 300,000 more places for higher education in public high schools and universities.

“Health and education are the rights of the Mexican people, not rights or commodities,” he stressed.

Obviously there will be big challenges ahead, too.

The drug war in Mexico continues to grow out of control, especially in the states of Sinaloa and Chiapas.

A deadly split in the Sinaloa Cartel has seen gun battles rage on the streets of the northern city of Culiacán and will not be easy for any leader to control.

Sheinbaum’s critics say his experience in improving the capital’s security won’t be readily applied at the federal level — especially, they argue, if he follows López Obrador’s path and chooses to fight cartels directly.

Indeed, the shadow of its predecessor will grow larger.

The man he called “brother, friend, compañero” insists that he will retire from political life and will enjoy retirement on his farm in Chiapas.

But others suspect that he may be too addicted to politics to stay away from it completely.

Sheinbaum’s ascension to the presidency is the culmination of his time at the sidelines, his career spanning from student activist to climate scientist to mayor of Mexico City now complete as he is sworn in as the country’s leader.

It’s been an unusual journey in itself – one that he insists is still just beginning.

“I am a mother, a grandmother, a scientist, a woman of faith, and now, a president!” he said wrapping up his first speech.

He promised to rule all Mexicans and put his “knowledge, power, past and life” to work to protect Mexico.

There will be pressure on him to succeed on his own right from the start.

However, the many millions of Mexican men and women who voted for him will give him little time and the benefit of the doubt.

He said to them: “I will not disappoint you.”