June 3, 2024
Leftist Claudia Sheinbaum, a close ally of popular
outgoing President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, won Mexico’s presidential
election in a landslide on Sunday, with an official tally showing her leading
right-wing opposition candidate Xóchitl Gálvez by nearly 30 percentage points.
Gálvez called Sheinbaum early Monday to acknowledge
the results and concede defeat in what was the largest race in Mexico’s
history—a contest marred by deadly violence.
Sheinbaum, a climate scientist and the former mayor
of Mexico City, is set to become the first woman and the first person of Jewish
descent to lead Mexico after Sunday’s overwhelming victory, which was a boon to
her leftist Morena party. According to official vote tallies, The Washington
Post reported, Morena and its allies “appeared close to winning a supermajority
in Congress, which would allow them to change the constitution.”
“We imagine a plural, diverse, and democratic
Mexico,” Sheinbaum told cheering supporters on Sunday. “Our duty is and will
always be to look after each and every Mexican, without distinction.”
David Adler, co-general coordinator of Progressive
International, called Sheinbaum and Morena’s win “epic, whopping, [and]
historic.”
While Sunday’s contest—which involved more than
20,000 government positions—and outcome were unprecedented, some questioned
whether the results would be truly transformative for Mexico, where poverty and
inequality remain high despite minimum wage hikes and other progress made in
recent years under the government of López Obrador, commonly known as AMLO.
“AMLO has done a little better for people than prior
governments, and Sheinbaum has pledged to continue his political approach,
though with a greater emphasis on sustainability,” Tamara Pearson, a Mexican
Australian author, journalist, and activist, wrote for The Nation ahead of
Sunday’s race. “The pension for informal workers has increased to 6,000 pesos
($359) every two months. The health system for informal workers, which includes
most Mexicans, is still extremely lacking but has improved.”
The outgoing president has also faced backlash for
pursuing fossil fuel infrastructure projects that risk damaging Indigenous
communities and the planet.
Mongabay‘s Maxwell Radwin noted last week that
Sheinbaum—who contributed to a major Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
(IPCC) report—”continues to support one of AMLO’s most polarizing projects, the
Tren Maya, a 1,554-kilometer (966-mile) railroad crossing the Yucatán
Peninsula.”
“Despite dozens of legal complaints about
deforestation, the destruction of cave ecosystems, and the relocation of
Indigenous communities,” Radwin observed, “she’s defended the project and even
suggested expanding it to a major port in the town of Progreso, in northwest
Yucatán.”
With Mexico facing a devastating heatwave and other
climate impacts, Sheinbaum has pledged to prioritize clean energy development,
vowing to “lead a $13.6 billion program to jumpstart Mexico’s renewable energy
sector,” Politicoreported.
Sheinbaum is set to take office in October.
No comments:
Post a Comment