Could Mexico be on its way to electing its first female president?
NBC News
Could Mexico be on its way to electing its first female president?
MEXICO CITY — The most historic legacy of President Andres Manuel López Obrador, a left-leaning resource nationalist who casts his administration as a turning point in the annals of Mexico, may be to pave the way for the country’s first female leader.
Mexico City Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum, a 60-year-old physicist, environmentalist and longstanding ally of López Obrador who has governed as mayor in tandem with his presidency, has emerged as early front-runner to be his party’s candidate in 2024, despite hints she could be more moderate than him.
Polls give López Obrador’s National Regeneration Movement (MORENA) a commanding lead in the presidential race, currently making the election appear a battle between the ruling party’s own contenders. Mexican law bars presidents from re-election.
López Obrador, whose 2018 election ushered in a series of left-wing victories in Latin America, most recently on Sunday with the return of Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva in Brazil, has repeatedly stated publicly that he has no favorite.
But five senior aides to the president told Reuters they had no doubt he would most like Sheinbaum to follow him, on the basis she was most likely to cement in history his vision of making the state the principal engine of social change.
Lorena Villavicencio, a former MORENA lawmaker, agreed.
“Claudia guarantees the key programs of the ‘Fourth Transformation’ will continue,” said Villavicencio, using the epithet López Obrador claims for his government as an epochal shift comparable to Mexico’s independence from Spain.
Socially conservative, the headstrong president has built his power base on higher welfare spending, state control of natural resources and expanding the role of the armed forces, while pillorying critics as corrupt and self-serving.
He has clashed with some feminists who view him as out of touch. Yet his government and Congress have also seen record female participation in a country where ‘machista’ culture has long been blamed for relegating women to subordinate roles and higher levels of violence against them than in regional peers.
Sheinbaum, who points to her record of making the city safer for women and providing free daycare for children, wants to take things further, pitching her candidacy as historic for women in Mexico and beyond.
“A woman in charge of the country would open new horizons and unleash the potential of other women. It would break the monopoly of men in public life,” said Villavicencio.
Speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters, the aides said López Obrador did not state his preference for Sheinbaum explicitly. They saw her as favorite based on their dealings with him, what he had said, and their assessment of political developments.
Things could still change if her bid falters, they noted.
Sheinbaum casts herself as the continuity candidate, both as custodian of his legacy and defender of his ideology, while hinting she could work better with investors in one area deemed crucial for Mexico’s development: green technology.
She vows to boost energy output in a way that spurs industrial development, thus addressing concerns raised by manufacturers fearful they would struggle to meet emission-reduction targets under López Obrador’s drive to prioritize output by Mexico’s fossil fuel-dependent state energy firms.
“Our country has enormous potential in renewable energy,” Sheinbaum told Reuters. “It’s perfectly feasible Mexico is really entering an age of renewable energy.”
Nevertheless, she also defends López Obrador’s contentious goal of ensuring power generation is split 54-46% in favor of the state in order to protect “energy sovereignty.”
Sheinbaum’s most prominent rival, Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard, is expected to be more business-friendly, half a dozen senior executives told Reuters. Still, they are quick to forecast both would be more encouraging to investors than López Obrador.
Four of the aides said they believed the president preferred Interior Minister Adan Augusto Lopez, another MORENA contender, to Ebrard, also on ideological grounds.
Aides stress that what López Obrador wants will be crucial in determining the candidate, even though he publicly denies this. The question is not settled because the president wants to see how the front-runners connect with voters, they say. He says the candidate will be chosen by polling organized by MORENA.
Recent surveys have tended to show voters slightly favoring Sheinbaum over Ebrard.
None of the party’s front-runners command López Obrador’s political authority, but all are likely to be more conciliatory as leaders, officials, diplomats and MORENA politicians say.
‘It’s the time of women’
Sheinbaum cuts a sober and measured figure compared to the folksy and often polarizing López Obrador, who has dictated Mexico’s political agenda from 7 a.m. daily news conferences.
Sheinbaum’s grandparents were Jewish immigrants from eastern Europe, and her election would be a milestone in Jewish history.
