Mexico elects Claudia Sheinbaum as its first woman president

 (AP) — Mexico’s projected presidential winner Claudia Sheinbaum will become the first woman president in the country’s 200-year history.

“I will become the first woman president of Mexico,” Sheinbaum said with a smile, speaking at a downtown hotel shortly after electoral authorities announced a statistical sample showed she held an irreversible lead. “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,” she said.

The National Electoral Institute’s president said Sheinbaum had between 58.3% and 60.7% of the vote, according to a statistical sample. Opposition candidate Xóchitl Gálvez had between 26.6% and 28.6% of the vote and Jorge Álvarez Máynez had between 9.9% and 10.8% of the vote. Sheinbaum’s Morena party was also projected to hold majorities in both chambers of Congress.

Mexico elections

Mexicans are voting Sunday in historic elections weighing gender, democracy and populism, as they chart the country’s path forward in voting shadowed by cartel violence. Follow live updates here.

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The climate scientist and former Mexico City mayor said that her two competitors had called her and conceded her victory.

The official preliminary count put Sheinbaum 28 points ahead of Gálvez with nearly 50% of polling places reporting.

The fact that the two leading candidates were women had left little doubt that Mexico would make history Sunday. Sheinbaum will also be the first person from a Jewish background to lead the overwhelmingly Catholic country.

She will start her six-year term Oct. 1. Mexico’s constitution does not allow reelection.

The leftist has said she believes the government has a strong role to play in addressing economic inequality and providing a sturdy social safety net, much like her political mentor President Andrés Manuel López Obrador.

Sheinbaum’s her victory suggests that the political movement López Obrador created will live on after his presidency.

Voters choosing Mexico’s next president will decide Sunday between a former academic who promises to further the current leader’s populist policies and an ex-senator and tech entrepreneur who pledges to up the fight against deadly drug cartels.

His anointed successor, the 61-year-old Sheinbaum led the campaign wire-to-wire despite a spirited challenge from Gálvez. This was the first time in Mexico that the two main opponents were women.

“Of course, I congratulate Claudia Sheinbaum with all my respect who ended up the winner by a wide margin,” López Obrador said shortly after the electoral authorities’ announcement. “She is going to be Mexico’s first (woman) president in 200 years.”

If the margin holds it would approach his landslide victory in 2018. López Obrador won the presidency after two unsuccessful tries with 53.2% of the votes, in a three-way race where National Action took 22.3% and the Institutional Revolutionary Party took 16.5%.

Still, Sheinbaum is unlikely to enjoy the kind of unquestioning devotion that López Obrador has enjoyed.

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