Mexico’s First Female President Takes Office Amid Deep Challenges and Unknowns

Claudia Sheinbaum will be sworn in as Mexico’s first ever female President on Tuesday. She will also be the first Jewish person to hold the office.

The historic ceremony will take place at the Legislative Palace of San Lázaro in Mexico City and will see First Lady Jill Biden and the leaders of over a dozen mostly Caribbean and Latin American countries in attendance.

Read More: The Meaning of Mexico's First Female President

Shortly after taking her oath, Sheinbaum is expected to give a speech at the National Palace in Mexico City. She takes up the role with a supermajority in Congress and significant control of the country’s courts and military.

But Sheinbaum faces a full in-tray of challenges including spiralling organized violence, a slowing economy, and tensions with the United States, Mexico’s largest trading partner, over a controversial judicial overhaul that critics say will undermine democratic checks and balances.

Sheinbaum may also have to operate under the shadow of her predecessor Andrés Manuel López Obrador, known as A.M.L.O., who founded the left-wing Morena party that she belongs to, and leaves office with an approval rating over 70%.

A.M.L.O. was first elected in 2018 and is constitutionally barred from seeking a second term.

One of the first tests of how close the lifelong left-wing activist will follow in the footsteps of A.M.L.O. may come next month, when Sheinbaum will present a budget. The outgoing President’s welfare and social policies have been popular but Mexico faces a ballooning deficit.

Analysts also say she may depart from A.M.L.O.’s “hugs not bullets” on organized crime that also entailed limiting cooperation with U.S. authorities.

“There are real-world reasons to believe Claudia Sheinbaum will take a different, ie better, path on public security than her predecessor, who had his virtues — but not on this issue,” Brian Winter, the editor-in-chief of Americas Quarterly, wrote in a post on X.

Sheinbaum takes office just one month before a tight U.S. election where Mexico and the migrant crisis at the border have taken center stage.