A climate scientist and former mayor of Mexico City, Claudia Sheinbaum won a landslide victory to become Mexico’s first female president.
In 2018, she became the first female mayor of Mexico City, a post she held until 2023, when she stepped down to run for president.
A rapid sample count by Mexico’s electoral authority, Sheinbaum, won the presidency with 58.3% and 60.7% of the vote, set to be the highest vote percentage in Mexico’s democratic history putting her nearest rival, Xochitl Galvez, who leads a coalition of largely conservative parties, on 26.6-28.8 percent.
According to Aljazeera, the former mayor addressed thousands of supporters who gathered to celebrate her victory and promised freedom of the press and a continuation of the social programmes of her mentor and outgoing President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador.
“I will become the first woman president of Mexico.
“I don’t make it alone. We’ve all made it, with our heroines who gave us our homeland, with our mothers, our daughters and our granddaughters.”
“We have demonstrated that Mexico is a democratic country with peaceful elections.
We women have landed in the presidency,” she said amid a roar from supporters.
Sheinbaum will replace her mentor, outgoing President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, on 1 October.
The climate scientist will become the first woman president in the country’s 200-year history.
