Claudia Sheinbaum took the oath of office on Tuesday as Mexico’s first female president in more than 200 years of independence, promising to protect an expanded social safety net and other popular policies put in place by her predecessor, but facing pressing problems.
The 62-year-old, scientist-turned-politician takes care of a country with a number of immediate challenges, foremost among them stubbornly high levels of violence, a sluggish economy and the hurricane-battered resort city of Acapulco, which she plans to visit on Wednesday.
While former president Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador took office six years ago declaring “For the good of all, first the poor,” and promising historical change from the neoliberal economic policies of his predecessors, Ms Sheinbaum has promised continuity.
She has committed to guarding his legacy: more support for the poor and a deepening militarization of domestic security; but many Mexicans remain hopeful that she will eventually step out of his formidable shadow.
Despite her pledge of continuity, she is a very different personality.
“Lopez Obrador was a tremendously charismatic president and many times that charisma allowed him to cover up some political errors that Claudia Sheinbaum will not have that possibility of doing,” said Carlos Perez Ricart, a political analyst at Mexico’s Centre for Economic Research and Teaching.
“So, where Lopez Obrador was charismatic, Claudia Sheinbaum will have to be effective.”
He is not leaving her an easy situation.
Her first trip as president will be to the flood-stricken Pacific coast resort of Acapulco.
Hurricane John, which struck as a Category 3 hurricane last week and then re-emerged into the ocean and struck again as a tropical storm, caused four days of incredibly heavy rain that killed at least 17 people along the coast around Acapulco.
Acapulco was devastated in October 2023 by Hurricane Otis, and had not recovered from that blow when John hit.
Ms Sheinbaum must also deal with raging violence in the cartel-dominated northern city of Culiacan, where factional 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 they flew there in a small plane on July 25.
Lopez Obrador has long sought to avoid confronting 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 glaringly apparent in Culiacan, the capital of Sinaloa state, where gun battles have raged on the city’s streets.
Local authorities and even the army – which Lopez Obrador had relied on for everything – have essentially admitted that the fighting will only end when the cartel bosses decide to end it.
But that’s only the latest hotspot.
Drug-related violence is surging from Tijuana in the north to Chiapas in the south, displacing thousands.
While Ms Sheinbaum inherits a huge budget deficit, unfinished construction projects and a burgeoning bill for her party’s cash hand-out programs – all of which could send financial markets tumbling – perhaps her biggest looming concern is the possibility of a victory for Donald Trump in the November 5 US presidential election.
Mr Trump has already vowed to slap 100% tariffs on vehicles made in Mexico. Though that would likely violate the current US-Mexico-Canada trade agreement, there are other things TMr rump could do to make life difficult for Sheinbaum, including his pledge of massive deportations.
