Mexico is prepared to receive this Tuesday its first president in the country’s 200 years of independence, a leftist woman with no trace of PRI in her long political career, which gives the so-called inauguration of Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo historical characteristics that They will be accompanied by numerous symbols, many of which are marked by the female presence. She will receive from another woman, the president of the Chamber of Deputies Ifigenia Martínez, the presidential sash that Andrés Manuel López Obrador had previously given. On this day, which is a holiday in Mexico, other women representatives of the native peoples of the Republic will participate in the planned ceremonies and rituals with a presence never before known. Presidents, vice presidents and personalities from all over the world have been landing in the last few hours to accompany the inauguration. All those with whom the country maintains diplomatic relations have been invited, from the Russian Vladimir Putin to the Argentine Javier Milei, but not King Felipe VI, so Spain, Mexico’s second trading partner and brother country, as they repeat on the side and another from the Atlantic, will not have any representation by decision of the President of the Government Pedro Sánchez. The diplomatic friction between both countries, caused by the unhealed wounds of the Conquest of 1521, will be one of the new president’s legacies.
Sheinbaum’s proclamation spans a long agenda from morning to night, almost like a royal wedding. The ivory color of the dress that the president will wear has already been announced, embroidered in cheerful tones by the Oaxacan artisan Claudia Vásquez Aquino. At noon, the new head of the Republic will move to the National Palace and greet the heads of state one by one, while the choirs and dances take place in the country’s great square, the capital’s Zócalo. At five in the afternoon, the door of honor of the palace will open so that the president of the second economy in Latin America and the first Spanish-speaking country in the world greets the Mexican people.
Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo (Mexico City, 62 years old) is a racial politician who comes from commanding the destiny of more than nine million citizens as head of the capital and has already formed her presidential cabinet, completing a comfortable and orderly transition with the previous president, his mentor, the very charismatic Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who has exhausted his mandate until the last minute. With a degree in Physics and a doctorate in Environmental Engineering, Sheinbaum comes from a European family of Jewish origins and academic lineage. Serious and conscientious, her supposed lack of charisma revealed a surprise in the elections last June, when she achieved even more support than her predecessor, almost 36 million votes accompanied by enormous majorities in the Chambers and where her party, Morena, has been winning. over the last few years the majority of the country’s States. He will govern with enormous power in his hands and an opposition that has not recovered from the shock and remains disjointed.
Two apparently antagonistic words, continuity and change, will be the keys to his mandate, with no indication yet which of them will prevail. The first promises announce the extension of the social aid that has been implemented in the country, for the elderly, women, and students, so that the fight against poverty initiated by López Obrador continues, an unequivocal sign of his mandate. The formation of the new cabinet also signals changes: “the doctor,” as they call her, will address areas that were not so benefited before, such as science and the environment, and inherits significant shortcomings in crucial portfolios, such as health and education. However, the great pending task is security, where statistics are stubborn with figures that, even rounded, amount to a hundred violent deaths per day on average.
Changes in government, even if they announce continuity, generally cause economic tremors. This has not been the exception. The great majority reached at the polls brought with it a disquiet that immediately manifested itself in a fall of the currency, until then very strong, and the unrest in the financial and investment world that the president-elect soon rushed to plug with meetings in the higher spheres and signs of political stability. But the signs of economic strength that López Obrador boasted at the end of his term and his successor in the electoral campaign now show some dark clouds that should be taken into account, with an economic slowdown in which some experts want to see the prelude to recession. Public spending on infrastructure leaves a more limited margin of action for the successor and foreign investments, which also reached unprecedented heights with 36 billion dollars in 2023, do not all respond to new projects, on the contrary, the majority is a reinvestment of capital.
The recently approved judicial reform, which the president has insisted on and which was supported by his successor in the electoral campaign, has not helped in this context. The popular election of judges, as if they were politicians, has been the latest conflict that has raised the hackles of investors, who demand guarantees of judicial independence. But López Obrador’s time has ended and now it will be Sheinbaum who will have to ensure that the waters take their course, that is, that change and continuity are an equation that works.
In any case, the economic solidity that was not even denied by the opposition in the electoral campaign persists, according to experts, and Mexican geography helps. Mexico is the main trading partner of the United States, above China, and the common border between both countries is expected to be key in the relocation of companies with which the Sheinbaum Government hopes to increase jobs and improve their productivity.
It’s women’s time in Mexico. With their first president, as she herself repeats, they all come to power. The number of deputies is equal and there are many institutions that have a woman at the helm. But figures are one thing and substantive policies are another. Every speech given by Sheinbaum in recent times has had its fair share of feminism, which has achieved, for the moment, a truce for the group, which had accumulated disappointments in the six-year term that is now ending. For feminists, having a woman in the highest chair in the country is a dose of hope. Mexico is a very sexist country, but few in the world have yet achieved a female president.
