Who is Claudia Sheinbaum, elected first female president of Mexico?

Elected this Sunday, June 2, President of Mexico, Claudia Sheinbaum becomes the first woman to occupy this position. Here’s everything we should know about her.

Coming from a politically engaged family, the left-wing candidate and former mayor of Mexico City promises to fight against the violence hitting her country.

Born on June 24, 1962 in Mexico, Claudia Scheinbaum comes from a committed family. “At home, we talked about politics morning, noon and evening,” she says in her autobiography “Claudia Sheinbaum, presidenta”.

Bulgarian grandparents

Granddaughter of Jews who came from Bulgaria and settled in Mexico to escape Nazism, she highlights her heritage.

“I come from a Jewish family and I am proud of my grandparents and my parents,” she said in a 2009 interview with La Jornada.

Co-author of an IPCC report

Born to a cell biologist mother and a chemical engineer father, Claudia Sheinbaum also chose to follow a scientific path. Holder of a doctorate in energy engineering, she is a brilliant student. Thanks to a stay at the American University of Berkeley, California, she speaks English fluently.

She contributes to the work of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007. Her area of ​​expertise focuses on climate change mitigation.

Former mayor of Mexico City

Claudia Sheinbaum entered politics in 2000 as Secretary of the Environment for Mexico City, while Andrés Manuel Lopez Obrador, now outgoing president, was mayor.

Mayor of the Tlalpan district, in the south of Mexico, between 2015 and 2017, she was faced with the collapse of the Rebsamen college during the earthquake of September 19, 2017, killing 26 people.

Mayor of Mexico City between 2018 and 2023, this time she must manage the collapse of an aerial bridge passing the metro in the south of the city on May 3, 2021, also causing 26 deaths. She is fighting in particular against insecurity in the capital, working in particular on a “comprehensive strategy for dealing with the causes” including “more and better police, intelligence, investigations and coordination”, in her words.

“Zero impunity” promised the elected president of Mexico Claudia Sheinbaum regarding the immense challenge that awaits her: governing a country which records 80 homicides per day, mostly perpetrated by criminal groups controlling entire swaths of the territory.

“I grew up with this duality: the belief that politics can transform the world alongside an academic and scientific mindset,” she says in her biography.