Mexico City Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum is the early favorite to become the next president of Mexico in 2024. If that happens, she would be the first woman to hold the office in the history of the country.
Sheinbaum, 60, is an ally of current Mexican president Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who, based on Mexican law, cannot run for re-election and who she’s been criticized for her ties to him. Obrador’s National Regeneration Movement (MORENA), however, is dominating the polls, so pundits believe the next president will come from his left-wing political party.
Lopez Obrador has publicly stated that he is not endorsing a candidate, but according to Reuters, he would like to see Sheinbaum take over the mantle after him, this according to five senior aides inside his administration.
“A woman in charge of the country would open new horizons and unleash the potential of other women,” said former MORENA lawmaker Lorena Villavicencio. “It would break the monopoly of men in public life.”
Born in Mexico City in 1962, Sheinbaum studied physics at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) where she earned a Ph.D. in energy engineering and physics in 1995. She then joined the faculty at UNAM’s Institute of Engineering.
Sheinbaum’s grandparents emigrated from Europe to Mexico – her father’s family from Lithuania in the 1920 and her mother’s family from Bulgaria in the 1940s. She was raised in a secular Jewish household.
As candidate strengths, she points to Mexico City’s drop in crime and her focus on green technology and just how groundbreaking it would be for the country if they elected her in 2024. “Mexico is at a special moment in its history,” Claudia Sheinbaum said.