Mexico has elected its first woman president in a landslide victory on Sunday.
Claudia Sheinbaum (61) a climate activist and former mayor of Mexico City, would also be the first Jewish person to lead the predominately catholic country in its 200-year history.
“I will become the first woman president of Mexico. 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,” she is quoted by the Associated Press to have said shortly after electoral authorities announced a statistical sample showed she held an irreversible lead.
Sheinbaum received between 58.3% and 60.7% of the vote according to a statistical sample from the Mexican electoral office, beating the main opposition woman candidate, Xóchitl Gálvez ( a tech entrepreneur and former senator ).
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Her party, Morena, is also expected to have a majority in the legislature, according to projections by the electoral agency.
Such a majority would allow her to approve constitutional changes that have eluded current President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, Politico reported.
The election, the biggest in the history of the Latin American country did not come without violence as a town council candidate was shot to death hours and another kidnapped while voting in a polling station, despite the deployment of soldiers across the country to facilitate a peaceful voting day.
Sheinbaum will start her six-year term Oct. 1, as she takes over from former President Andrés Manuel López Obrador of the same party. Mexico’s constitution does not allow reelection.
