Once again, an earthquake has rippled through Mexico. In 2024, tremors of a political nature moved the nation June 2 and resulted in the first woman elected as president in Mexico’s 214-year history.
The victor is Claudia Sheinbaum, a onetime student activist, former Mexico City governor, member of the Nobel Prize-winning 2007 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and a dedicated co-crafter and adherent of outgoing President Andres Manuel López Obrador’s Fourth Transformation political program of social, political and economic reform, or the 4T.
Like López Obrador, president-elect Sheinbaum, who will assume office Oct. 1, vows to continue with the 4T’s landmark social programs, including its universal senior pensions. Moreover, she pledges to extend the 4T to a “second level,” while governing in the interests of all Mexicans, not just the privileged few.
In post-election day remarks, Sheinbaum celebrated her victory as a collective triumph for Mexican women, who’ve steadily gained positions of political power during the last two decades.
“Women have arrived at the highest distinction that our people could give us — the presidency of Mexico,” Sheinbaum said. “I say this in the plural because as I said, I don’t come alone — we all do.”
Mario Delgado, head of Sheinbaum’s Morena party, lauded his candidate’s win as not only a gender milestone for Mexico, but for North America as well. Now it’s up to Canada and the United States to catch up with Mexico and some day elect female heads of state.
Sheinbaum’s landslide victory of 33 million plus votes, or nearly 60% of the total ballots cast, is the most votes ever received by a presidential candidate in Mexico, even surpassing López Obrador’s own win with 30 million votes in 2018.
The 4T’s June tidal wave did not stop with the presidency. With more than 20,000 political posts up for grabs across the nation, Mexico’s biggest election ever, the preliminary election tallies now have Sheinbaum’s three-party electoral coalition consisting of the Morena, Labor and Mexican Green parties on the cusp of possessing sufficient Congressional votes to pass constitutional reforms.
The Sheinbaum landslide likewise translated into the victory of coalition gubernatorial candidates in 24 out of 32 Mexican states, giving the future president greater political clout to expand the 4T’s healthcare and other programs.
Despite the overwhelming wins for Morena and its allies, opposition candidates are expected to file legal challenges in the coming days.
Though enjoying a renewed mandate for continued change, Sheinbaum confronts many balancing acts in consolidating the 4T and the emerging new social pact between the Mexican State and people, underpinned by what López Obrador and Sheinbaum call Mexican Humanism. On the economic front, she must manage financing the popular social programs with addressing budget deficit concerns.
In foreign relations, Sheinbaum vows to continue a “respectful” and friendly relationship with the United States, while maintaining differences with Washington over diplomatic ties and trade with Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela. A return of Donald Trump to the White House could spell trouble for Mexico.
Rated one of the most vulnerable countries in the world to climate change, Mexico’s mounting ecological crises, evidenced by last year’s hurricane that devastated Acapulco as well as growing water shortages across the nation, will test Sheinbaum’s environmental credentials.
While Sheinbaum was the clearly the front-runner for months in most serious Mexican polls, U.S. and Mexican media outlets largely missed what was behind her resounding victory.
Foreign and national media coverage of the June 2 election focused on ongoing criminal violence, the murders of dozens of mostly local and state candidates in several regions of Mexico, the possible but unproven infiltration of organized crime in the political races, and perceived or real shortcomings of the 4T. Logically, if such matters were decisive factors for the majority of voters, the opposition would have won or at least made a better showing.
But for masses of Mexicans, López Obrador’s administration (and by extension Sheinbaum’s candidacy) is the first time any government truly spoke their language and paid attention to their needs, delivering tangible benefits in the form of senior pensions, student grants, rural support programs, and more.
Ciudad Juárez author and book seller Antonio Chávez summed up the popular sentiment: “I’m 70 years old and I’ve never gotten a nickel from the government. I get 6,000 pesos every month (senior pension) … it helps me pay rent.”
At the end of the day, the center-right opposition never provided a coherent alternative to the 4T. “The results are for all to see,” editorialized left-leaning daily La Jornada. “The political representatives of the neo-liberal right and oligarchy, their intellectuals and pundits and their ‘civil’ front organizations are now living a profound and irreparable defeat.”
Kent Paterson is a freelance journalist who divides his time between Mexico and the US Southwest. Email kentnews@unm.edu
From The Progressive Populist, July 1-15, 2024
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