Claudia Sheinbaum’s checklist of accolades is lengthy: She has a Ph.D in vitality engineering, participated in a United Nations panel of local weather scientists awarded a Nobel Peace Prize and ruled the capital, one of many largest cities within the hemisphere.
On Sunday, she added one other achievement to her résumé: changing into the primary girl elected president of Mexico.
Ms. Sheinbaum, 61, captured at the least 58 % of the vote in a landmark election on Sunday that featured two girls competing for the nation’s highest workplace — a groundbreaking contest in a rustic lengthy identified for a tradition of machismo and rampant violence towards girls.
Now that she has clinched the presidency, Ms. Sheinbaum’s subsequent hurdle might be stepping out of the shadow of her predecessor and longtime mentor, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, the outgoing president.
She and Mr. López Obrador are “totally different folks,” she mentioned in an interview. He’s an oilman who invested in environmentally questionable initiatives; she’s a local weather scientist. But Ms. Sheinbaum has appealed to voters primarily by promising to cement his legacy, backing strikes like his huge wager on the nationwide oil firm and proposed constitutional adjustments that critics name antidemocratic.
Their alliance has additionally left many Mexicans asking: Can Ms. Sheinbaum be her personal chief? Or will she simply be his pawn?
“There’s this concept, as a result of a whole lot of columnists say it, that I don’t have a persona,” Ms. Sheinbaum complained to reporters earlier this 12 months. “That President Andrés Manuel López Obrador tells me what to do.”
She insists she’s going to govern independently from Mr. López Obrador and has some totally different priorities. However veering too removed from his agenda could possibly be very dangerous.
Listed here are 5 issues to know concerning the newly elected president of Mexico that assist inform whether or not she’s going to stray from Mr. López Obrador’s insurance policies or dedicate herself to cementing his legacy.
1. Sheinbaum will inherit a bunch of challenges.
A former ballet dancer, Ms. Sheinbaum calls herself “obsessive” and “disciplined.” However self-discipline might not be sufficient, analysts say.
As president, she already stands to inherit an extended checklist of troubles. The state-owned oil firm is buckling underneath debt, migration by way of the nation has reached historic highs and cartel violence continues to torment the nation.
She has mentioned she would proceed Mr. López Obrador’s coverage of addressing the drivers of violence as an alternative of waging warfare on the legal teams, however will even work to decrease charges of impunity and construct up the nationwide guard.
With a U.S. presidential election simply months away, she informed The New York Occasions that she was ready to work with whichever candidate wins. Publicly, she has echoed Mr. López Obrador’s emphasis on tackling migration by addressing its root causes.
In a touch of potential change, she mentioned in a latest debate that she would search to reform the country’s migration authority, an company typically accused of corruption.
2. She’s seen as reserved, even aloof.
The Occasions spoke with two dozen individuals who have labored with or know Ms. Sheinbaum and in addition visited marketing campaign occasions, reviewed her writings and her media appearances and interviewed her, as soon as in 2020 and once more this 12 months.
What grew to become clear is that Ms. Sheinbaum, (pronounced SHANE-balm), has lengthy appeared extra snug quietly getting issues executed than promoting herself or her achievements.
The granddaughter of Jewish immigrants who fled Europe, she not often discusses being Jewish or virtually something about her private life, colleagues say. When interviewers ask her concerning the Nobel Prize she shared with a panel of local weather researchers, she notes what number of others have been concerned within the work.
She is called a troublesome boss with a fast mood who can encourage in her workers concern and adoration on the similar time. Publicly, although, her have an effect on is so managed it verges on aloof.
Some say her professorial demeanor might pose a problem in a political panorama outlined by Mr. López Obrador, who constructed his social gathering right into a juggernaut by counting on the drive of his persona.
“She wants him,” mentioned Carlos Heredia, a Mexican political analyst. “She doesn’t have the charisma, she doesn’t have the recognition, she doesn’t have the political stamina of her personal, so she must borrow that from López Obrador.”
For some Mexicans, nevertheless, a thrills-free girl could also be a perfect antidote to an entertaining man who plunged the nation into partisan turmoil.
3. She’s lengthy sought to maintain Mr. López Obrador completely satisfied.
The candidate’s political profession started when Mr. López Obrador was elected mayor of Mexico Metropolis in 2000 and invited her to a gathering at a diner. “What I need is to cut back air pollution,” she recalled Mr. López Obrador telling her. “Have you learnt how to do this?”
Ms. Sheinbaum, who by then had written greater than a dozen experiences on vitality use and carbon emissions, mentioned sure. She grew to become his surroundings minister. In conferences, she appeared prepared to do virtually something to make her boss completely satisfied, in keeping with a number of individuals who labored along with her.
“The phrase she used over and over was ‘The mayor mentioned to,’” mentioned Mr. Heredia, who labored along with her in metropolis authorities underneath Mr. López Obrador. What that meant, in keeping with Mr. Heredia: “We aren’t a cupboard for giving concepts,” he mentioned. “We’re a gaggle of individuals right here to execute what he decides.”
Within the years that adopted, Ms. Sheinbaum straddled academia and politics, however she at all times stayed near Mr. López Obrador. When he based his Morena social gathering in 2014, he requested her to run on the social gathering’s ticket to grow to be mayor of Tlalpan, a borough of Mexico Metropolis. Together with his backing, she received.
4. She is thought for being a demanding boss.
In 2018, Mr. López Obrador was swept into the presidency in a landslide and Ms. Sheinbaum grew to become Mexico Metropolis’s mayor. She shortly gained a fame as an exacting boss.
“One doesn’t go to her conferences to inform her, ‘I’m engaged on it,’” mentioned Soledad Aragón, a former member of Ms. Sheinbaum’s cupboard. When she walked right into a room, Ms. Aragón mentioned, everybody sat up straight.
As mayor, she might keep in mind particular numbers talked about in a gathering weeks after it occurred, Ms. Aragón mentioned, calling her “sensible” and “demanding,” particularly of herself, including: “It has gotten outcomes.”
5 officers who’ve labored with Ms. Sheinbaum, who weren’t approved to talk publicly, mentioned that she was fast to anger at occasions and would yell at her subordinates in entrance of huge teams. By way of a spokesman, Ms. Sheinbaum declined to touch upon the accusation.
Her defenders say some folks merely reacted badly to a girl in cost.
“I do know that in her authorities, generally folks acquired offended or felt dangerous as a result of she yelled at them,” mentioned Marta Lamas, a longtime feminist activist who has been near Ms. Sheinbaum and her group. “But when a person yells, it wouldn’t be a difficulty as a result of culturally, it’s totally different.”
“Individuals say it in a vital means: ‘She’s robust,’” Ms. Aragón mentioned. “What would you like, somebody delicate in command of town?”
5. She is a real believer in Mr. López Obrador’s imaginative and prescient.
For years, Ms. Sheinbaum has tried to clarify how she will be so in line with Mr. López Obrador whereas additionally being herself. The reply, she says, is straightforward: She genuinely believes in him.
In 2022, a radio host requested her a pointed query from a feminine listener: “Why don’t you select to be a girl who governs along with her personal concepts? Why don’t you get out of AMLO’s circus?” she requested, utilizing Mr. López Obrador’s nickname. “Why have the identical rhetoric with the identical phrases?”
Ms. Sheinbaum didn’t hesitate.
“For those who suppose the identical as one other particular person, it’s not that you just’re copying them; you simply agree with the concepts,” she mentioned. “You may’t deny what you imagine.”
Emiliano Rodríguez Mega contributed reporting.
