The former mayor of Mexico City, Claudia Sheinbaum, elected Sunday the first female president in the history of Mexico, is a seasoned politician, faced with two disasters when she led the capital. In addition to her own merits, the doctor in energy engineering was buoyed by the popularity of outgoing president Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who installed the left in power in 2018.
Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo was born on June 24, 1962 in Mexico City to parents involved in the 1960s, when students or guerrillas wanted to shake up the “perfect dictatorship” of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), hegemonic from 1930 to 2000. “At home, we talked about politics morning, noon and evening,” she confided in a biography, Claudia Sheinbaum, president. His mother, Annie Pardo, a biologist, was expelled from the university for her participation in the 1968 movement.
Avid activist
In the very unequal Mexican melting pot, it is a granddaughter of European Jews who takes up the slogan of the outgoing president, “the poor first”, addressed among others to discriminated indigenous communities. “I come from a Jewish family and I am proud of my grandparents and my parents,” she wrote on January 12, 2009 in the newspaper the day to express his “horror of the images of Israeli bombings in Gaza” during a previous military operation.
She explained that her maternal grandmother and her communist paternal grandfather had left Lithuania and Bulgaria to escape Nazi persecution. A brilliant student, Claudia Sheinbaum carried out a master’s degree in energy engineering at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) in the 1980s, and a commitment within the University Student Council (CEU) against university reform.
She is a diligent activist, even pregnant with her daughter Mariana born in 1988. “She was always up for it. In meetings, especially,” remembers Guillermo Robles, his master’s classmate. Claudia Sheinbaum completed her doctorate with an academic stay in California, which means that she speaks English well unlike the outgoing president, suggesting a more internationally oriented presidency.
In a photo on the front page of the Stanford Daily in 1991, we see the young woman protesting against a visit by the liberal Mexican president at the time, Carlos Salinas de Gortari, with a sign in her hand: “Fair trade and democracy now!” “. Claudia Sheinbaum entered politics with current president Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, mayor of Mexico City between 2000 and 2006.
He entrusted him with the environment portfolio, strategic in the megacity of nine million inhabitants (in 2023). The young elected official is behind the construction of the second floor of the “ring road” to relieve congestion on one of the urban highways that cross Mexico City. Claudia Sheinbaum also launched bus lanes and bike lanes.
Two tragedies
Returning to university in 2006, the Mexican scientist contributed to the work of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), winning the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007. Her theme of expertise: climate mitigation climate change. Returning to politics, she overcame two disasters that occurred under her management.
Mayor of the Tlalpan district in the south of Mexico (2015-2017), she had to deal with the collapse of the Rebsamen college during the earthquake of September 19, 2017, which killed 26 people, including 19 children. She claimed that the town hall was not responsible for the irregularities committed in the construction of the building.
Mayor of Mexico City (2018-2023), she had to manage the collapse of an aerial bridge passing the metro in the south of the city on May 3, 2021 (26 dead and 80 injured). She defended her teams and negotiated with the builders of the line – a company owned by billionaire Carlos Slim – compensation for the victims, avoiding trials.
Claudia Sheinbaum tried to manage the pandemic scientifically and without coercive measures in the capital, which recorded the highest rate of deaths per 100,000 inhabitants (442.1) in the entire country, one of the most affected in the world. At the head of the capital, Claudia Sheinbaum is pleased to have reduced insecurity “thanks to an integral strategy for dealing with the causes, more and better police, intelligence, investigations and coordination”. As President, she will be confronted with the narco-violence that is undermining Mexico.
During the campaign, “Claudia” announced her marriage in November 2023 with Jesús Tarriba, a youthful sweetheart found on Facebook in 2016. In her first marriage, she married Carlos Imaz, founder of the left-wing party PRD, the father of her daughter, and whose son she considers as her own child.