Mexicans have elected their first woman president.
According to results announced by Mexico’s National Electoral Institute Monday in an election that saw voters bear long lines to cast ballots from Mexico City to New York, Montreal, and Madrid. Claudia Sheinbaum got between 58.3% and 60.7% of the vote in a historic election.
Sheinbaum, a climate scientist and former mayor of Mexico City and a political protege of the current – and still popular – President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who is affectionately known in Mexico as ”AMLO” That association boosted Sheinbaum’s campaign with momentum for months, and she enjoyed double-digit leads in the polls.
”The first time in the 200 years of the republic I will become the first woman President of Mexico,” Sheinbaum told supporters to loud cheers of ”President president.”
Sheinbaum vowed to improve security but has given details and the election, the most violent in Mexico’s modern history with 38 candidates murdered, has reinforced the massive security problem.
She has promised to expand welfare programs but it will not be easy with Mexico on track for a large deficit this year and a sluggish GDP growth of just 1.5% expected by the central bank in 2025.
Millions of Mexicans headed to the polls on Sunday to elect a new president and thousands of other leaders, from local mayors to state governors and federal representatives. Polls closed at 6 p.m. Central time in most of Mexico’s 32 states. Mexican presidents serve a single six-year term and aren’t eligible for re-election.
Sunday’s election is historic for another reason: It’s the biggest in Mexican history, according to its National Electoral Institute, with more than 20,600 elected offices up for grabs nationwide.
According to the electoral institute, some 98 million Mexicans are registered and eligible to vote in the election. A majority of them – 51 million – are women.
