Claudia Sheinbaum on Tuesday was sworn in as Mexican president, riding the enthusiasm over her predecessor’s social programs, but also facing challenges that include stubbornly high levels of violence.
After a smiling Sheinbaum took the oath of office on the floor of Congress, legislators shouted: “Presidenta. Presidenta,” using the feminine form of president in Spanish for the first time in more than 200 years of Mexico’s history as an independent country.
The 62-year-old scientist-turned-politician receives a country with a number of immediate problems, including a sluggish economy, unfinished building programs, rising debt and the hurricane-battered resort city of Acapulco.
Photo: AFP
In her inauguration speech, Sheinbaum said that she came to power accompanied by all of the women who have struggled in anonymity to make their way in Mexico, including “those who dreamed of the possibility that one day no matter if we were born as women or men we would achieve our dreams and desires without our sex determining our destiny.”
She made a long list of promises to limit prices for gasoline and food, expand cash handout programs for women and children and support business investment, housing and passenger rail construction.
However, any mention of the drug cartels that control much of the country was brief and near the end of the list.
Photo: AFP
Sheinbaum offered little change from former Mexican president Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador’s “hugs not bullets” strategy of addressing root causes and not confronting the cartels, apart from pledging more intelligence work and investigation.
“There will be no return to the irresponsible drug war,” she said.
She has pledged to continue all of Lopez Obrador’s policies, even those that bolstered the power of the military, and weakened the country’s checks and balances.
After the inauguration, Sheinbaum attended a rally in Mexico City’s colonial-era main plaza to participate in a ceremony involving an all-women committee representing Mexico’s approximately 70 indigenous groups.
Sheinbaum was blessed and brushed with herbs and incense by Ernestina Ortiz, a “spiritual guide,” who told Sheinbaum: “You are a voice for all of us who had no voice for a long time.”
An indigenous elder then handed Sheinbaum a wooden “staff of authority,” like those carried by community leaders.
After the ceremony, Sheinbaum said she would push for a total ban on any public servant being re-elected to office.
Lucia Ruiz, a 42-year-old mother of three, was one of thousands trying to reach the main square to see the rally.
She said she hoped Sheinbaum would combat high rates of violence against women in the country.
“She is going to represent us,” Ruiz said. “We have always been governed by men, and they think we’re incapable, but we’re not. We are the head of our families.”
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