Claudia Sheinbaum sworn in as 1st female president of Mexico

Claudia Sheinbaum was sworn in Tuesday as Mexico’s first female president, riding the enthusiasm over her predecessor’s social programs but also facing challenges that include stubbornly high levels of violence.

After a smiling Sheinbaum took the oath of office on the floor of Congress, legislators shouted “Presidenta! Presidenta!” using the feminine form of president in Spanish for the first time in over 200 years of Mexico’s history as an independent country.

The 62-year-old scientist-turned-politician receives a country with a number of immediate problems, also including a sluggish economy, unfinished building programs, rising debt and the hurricane-battered resort city of Acapulco.

In her inauguration speech, Sheinbaum said that she came to power accompanied by all of the women who have struggled in anonymity to make their way in Mexico, including “those who dreamed of the possibility that one day no matter if we were born as women or men we would achieve our dreams and desires without our sex determining our destiny.”

She made a long list of promises to limit prices for gasoline and food, expand cash hand-out programs for women and children, support business investment, housing and passenger rail construction. But any mention of the drug cartels that control much of the country was brief and near the end of the list.

Sheinbaum offered little change from former President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s ‘Hugs not Bullets’ strategy of addressing root causes and not confronting the cartels, apart from pledging more intelligence work and investigation. “There will be no return to the irresponsible drug war,” she said.

Sheinbaum romped to victory in June with nearly 60 per cent of the vote, propelled largely by the sustained popularity of her political mentor, López Obrador. She has pledged to continue all his policies, even those that strengthened the power of the military and weakened the country’s checks and balances.

After the inauguration, Sheinbaum appeared at a mass rally in Mexico City’s colonial-era main plaza to participate in a ceremony involving an all-women committee representing Mexico’s approximately 70 Indigenous groups.

Sheinbaum was blessed and brushed with herbs and incense by Ernestina Ortiz, a “spiritual guide,” who told Sheinbaum “You are a voice for all of us who had no voice for a long time.” An Indigenous elder then handed Sheinbaum a wooden Indigenous “staff of authority,” like those carried by community leaders.

After the ceremony, Sheinbaum said she would push for a total ban on any public servant being re-elected to office — a tall promise, given that her party has now passed a law making all judges stand for election. That would suggest Mexico may have a new crop of inexperienced judges every few years.

Lucía Ruíz, a 42-year-old mother of three, was one of thousands trying to reach the main square to see the rally. She said she hopes Sheinbaum will be able to combat high rates of violence against women in the country.

“She is going to represent us,” said Ruíz. “We have always been governed by men, and they think we’re incapable, but we’re not. We are the head of our families.”

López Obrador took office six years ago declaring “For the good of all, first the poor,” and promising historical change from the neoliberal economic policies of his predecessors. Sheinbaum promised continuity from his popular social policies to controversial constitutional reforms to the judiciary and National Guard rammed through during his final days in office.

Despite her pledge of continuity, Sheinbaum is a very different personality: a cautious scientist and ideological university leftist, as opposed to the outgoing president’s chummy, everyman appeal.

“López Obrador was a tremendously charismatic president and many times that charisma allowed him to cover up some political errors that Claudia Sheinbaum will not have that possibility of doing,” said Carlos Pérez Ricart, a political analyst at Mexico’s Center for Economic Research and Teaching. “So, where López Obrador was charismatic, Claudia Sheinbaum will have to be effective.”

She will wield formidable power because López Obrador’s Morena party controls both houses of Congress. But the country remains deeply polarised between the outgoing president’s fanatic fans and almost one-third of the population who deeply resent him.

“If we want a strong government, the checks and balances also have to be strong,” said opposition Sen. María Guadalupe Murguía, suggesting that an all-powerful army and unchecked ruling party could come back to haunt Mexico. “Remember,” she said, “nobody wins everything, and nobody loses forever.”

Sheinbaum is not inheriting an easy situation.

Drug cartels have strengthened their hold over much of Mexico, and her first trip as president will be to the Pacific coast resort of Acapulco, which was flooded last week by Hurricane John, which killed at least 17 people along the coast around the resort. Acapulco was devastated in October 2023 by Hurricane Otis, and had not recovered from that blow when John hit.

Sheinbaum must also deal with raging violence in the cartel-dominated northern city of Culiacan, where factional fighting within the Sinaloa cartel broke out after drug lords Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada and Joaquín Guzmán López were apprehended in the United States after they flew there in a small plane on July 25.

López Obrador has long sought to avoid confronting Mexico’s drug cartels and has openly appealed to the gangs to keep the peace among themselves, but the limitations of that strategy have become glaringly apparent in Culiacan, the capital of Sinaloa state, where gun battles have raged on the city’s streets. Local authorities and even the army — which López Obrador has relied on for everything — have essentially admitted that the fighting will only end when the cartel bosses decide to end it.

But that’s only the latest hotspot.

Drug-related violence is surging from Tijuana in the north to Chiapas in the south, displacing thousands.

While Sheinbaum inherits a huge budget deficit, unfinished construction projects and a burgeoning bill for her party’s cash hand-out programs — all of which could send financial markets tumbling — perhaps her biggest looming concern is the possibility of a victory for Donald Trump in the November 5 US presidential election.

Trump has already vowed to slap 100 per cent tariffs on vehicles made in Mexico. Though that would likely violate the current US-Mexico-Canada trade agreement, there are other things Trump could do to make life difficult for Sheinbaum, including his pledge of massive deportations.

Relations with Mexico’s northern neighbour were already tense after López Obrador said he was putting relations with the US embassy “on pause” after public criticism of the proposed judicial overhaul.

At her inauguration, Sheinbaum boosted the free trade agreement with the United States and Canada, saying “we know that economic cooperation strengthens the three nations.”

There are areas where Sheinbaum could try to take Mexico in a new direction. For example, she has a PhD in energy engineering and has spoken of the need to address climate change.

But on Tuesday, she said she would cap oil production at 1.8 million barrels per day, which would be more than what the troubled state-owned company currently produces. “We are going to promote energy efficiency and the transition toward renewable sources of energy,” she said.