Claudia Sheinbaum is sworn in as Mexico’s first female president – ​​The Irish News

Claudia Sheinbaum took the oath of office on Tuesday as Mexico’s first female president in more than two hundred years of independence. She promised to protect an expansive social safety net and other popular policies of her predecessor, but faces pressing challenges.

The 62-year-old scientist-turned-politician faces a country with a number of immediate challenges, chief among them persistently high levels of violence, a sluggish economy and the hurricane-ravaged seaside resort of Acapulco, which she plans to tackle. visit on Wednesday.

While former President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador took office six years ago declaring “For the good of all, the poor first,” and promising historic change from the neoliberal economic policies of his predecessors, Ms. Sheinbaum has promised continuity.

She has committed to safeguarding his legacy: increasing support for the poor and deepening the militarization of homeland security; but many Mexicans remain hopeful that she will eventually step out of its formidable shadow.

Despite her promise of continuity, she is a very different personality.

“Lopez Obrador was an enormously charismatic president and that charisma often allowed him to cover up political mistakes that Claudia Sheinbaum does not have the ability to do,” said Carlos Perez Ricart, a political analyst at the Mexican Center for Economic Research and Education.

“So where Lopez Obrador was charismatic, Claudia Sheinbaum will have to be effective.”

He doesn’t give her an easy situation.

Her first trip as president will be to the flood-hit Pacific coast resort of Acapulco.

Hurricane John, which struck last week as a Category 3 hurricane and then resurfaced in the ocean and struck again as a tropical storm, brought four days of incredibly heavy rainfall that killed at least 17 people along the coast around Acapulco.

Acapulco was devastated by Hurricane Otis in October 2023 and had not yet recovered from the blow when John struck.

Ms. Sheinbaum also faces intense violence in the cartel-dominated northern city of Culiacan, where faction fighting within the Sinaloa cartel broke out after drug lords Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada and Joaquin Guzman Lopez were apprehended in the United States after flying there. in a small plane on July 25.

Lopez Obrador has long tried to avoid confrontation with Mexico’s drug cartels and has openly appealed to the gangs to keep the peace among themselves, but the limitations of that strategy have become abundantly clear in Culiacan, the capital of Sinaloa state, where gun battles have raged. the streets of the city.

Local authorities and even the military – which Lopez Obrador had relied on for everything – have essentially conceded that the fighting will not end until cartel bosses decide to put an end to it.

But that’s just the latest hotspot.

Drug-related violence is on the rise from Tijuana in the north to Chiapas in the south, forcing thousands of people to flee.

While Ms. Sheinbaum inherits a massive budget deficit, unfinished construction projects and a rapidly growing bill for her party’s cash-out programs — all of which could collapse financial markets — perhaps her biggest looming concern is the possibility of a victory for Donald Trump in the elections. November 5 US presidential election.

Trump has already promised to impose 100% tariffs on cars made in Mexico. While that would likely violate the current U.S.-Mexico-Canada trade deal, there are other things Trump could do to make Sheinbaum’s life difficult, including his promise of mass deportations.