Claudia Sheinbaum is sworn in as Mexico’s first female president

By MARÍA VERZA, MEGAN JANETSKY and MARK STEVENSON

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Claudia Sheinbaum was sworn in Tuesday as Mexico’s first female president. She benefited from enthusiasm for her predecessor’s social programs, but also faced challenges such as persistently high levels of violence.

After a smiling Sheinbaum took the oath of office on the floor of Congress, lawmakers shouted the feminine form of the word president in Spanish: “Presidenta! Presidenta!” – for the first time in more than 200 years of Mexico’s history as an independent country.

The 62-year-old scientist-turned-politician is hosting a country with a number of immediate problems, including a sluggish economy, unfinished construction programs, mounting debt and the hurricane-ravaged seaside resort of Acapulco.

“Now is the time of transformation, now is the time of women,” she said.

She made a long list of promises to cap gasoline and food prices, expand cash handout programs for women and children, support business investment, housing and the construction of passenger railroads. But the mentions of the drug cartels that control much of the country were brief and near the end of the list.

Sheinbaum offered little change from outgoing President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s “Hugs not Bullets” strategy of not confronting the cartels, other than promising more intelligence work and investigations. “There will be no return to the irresponsible drug war,” she said.

Sheinbaum emerged victorious in June with nearly 60% of the vote, thanks in large part to the enduring popularity of her political mentor, former President Andrés Manuel López Obrador. She has pledged to continue all his policies, even those that strengthened the military’s power and weakened the country’s checks and balances.

López Obrador took office six years ago, declaring “For the good of all, the poor first,” promising a historic change from the neoliberal economic policies of his predecessors. Sheinbaum promised continuity from his popular social policies to controversial constitutional reforms of the judiciary and National Guard implemented during his final days in office.

Despite her promise of continuity, Sheinbaum is a very different personality: a cautious scholar and ideological left-winger, in contrast to the outgoing president’s friendly, everyday appeal.

“López Obrador was an enormously charismatic president and that charisma often allowed him to cover up political mistakes that Claudia Sheinbaum does not have the opportunity to do,” said Carlos Pérez Ricart, a political analyst at the Mexican Center for Economic Research and Education. “So where López Obrador was charismatic, Claudia Sheinbaum will have to be effective.”

However, she will wield formidable power because López Obrador’s Morena party controls both houses of Congress. And with that come warning signs, as the country remains deeply polarized between the outgoing president’s fanatical fans and nearly a third of the population who deeply dislike him.

“If we want a strong government, the checks and balances must also be strong,” said opposition Senator María Guadalupe Murguía, suggesting that an all-powerful military and an out-of-control ruling party could come back to haunt Mexico. “Remember,” she said, “no one wins everything, and no one loses forever.”