OAN Staff James Meyers
1:12 PM – Tuesday, October 1, 2024
Claudia Sheinbaum officially took office Tuesday, becoming Mexico’s first female president and the first of Jewish heritage during a historic inauguration ceremony.
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At the legislative Palace of San Lázaro in Mexico City, attendees swarmed Sheinbaum, taking selfies and greeting her, as she did a send off for outgoing president Andrés Manuel López Obrador and Ifigenia Martínez, president of Mexico’s Chamber of Congress.
Sheinbaum took her path and addressed a room of more than 100 high-profile invitees, which included First Lady Jill Biden and the presidents of nearly a dozen African and Latin American countries.
The new Mexican president made history three months ago after defeating Xóchitl Gálvez of the Broad Front for Mexico and Jorge Álvarez Máynez of the Citizen Movement in a landslide election on June 2nd.
Sheinbaum is widely expected to follow in the footsteps of her mentor and predecessor, López Obrador.
The far-left Morena party, which López Obrador founded, has been in charge of Mexican politics since 2018, when he was elected. López Obrador leaves office with an approval rating of nearly 80%, Noticias Telemundo reported.
Sheinbaum, vowed to carry on his biggest pledges, which also includes combating the country’s staggering levels of violence by following the “hugs, not bullets” policy of not directly taking on criminal organizations that have gained control over major regions in Mexico as they fight for territory to traffic drugs into the U.S.
However, crime rates stayed high during López Obrador’s term, with over 199,000 homicides and 51,000 people reported missing from December 2018 to August 2024, according to Noticias Telemundo.
Mexican government data also revealed that strategies of pursuing drug lords in an all-out war did not improve safety.
Sheinbaum also takes on a country struggling with their currency, a massive budget deficit and tensions with its biggest trade partners over a judicial overhaul that will allow voters to elect judges.
She will also have an important role in resolving issues that are priorities for the U.S., such as foreign affairs and immigration, as well as determining the future of the trade deal that has made Mexico the U.S. largest trade partner.
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