Mexico Poised to Make History by Electing First Woman President in June 2024 Election Between the Lines
go to original October 7, 2023

Mexican Senator Xochitl Galvez (L), and outgoing Mexico City Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum (Reuters)

Mexico appears to be on track to elect its first woman president in next year’s national election, after its two leading political parties each nominated female candidates. The former mayor of Mexico City and frontrunner, Claudia Sheinbaum, is a physicist with a doctorate in environmental engineering of the ruling progressive MORENA party.

Sheinbaum, who is Jewish, will face off in the June 2 election against Xóchitl Gálvez, candidate of the center right Broad Front for Mexico coalition, who is a sitting senator with indigenous roots.

Although Mexican women didn’t win full voting rights until 1953, the nation has made progress increasing the representation of women in government and the judiciary. Mexico’s Supreme Court recently decriminalized abortion nationwide.

Although the election of a woman won’t reverse Mexico’s long history of macho culture and gender discrimination, it will serve as a powerful symbol of the capacity for future change.

Between The Lines’ Scott Harris spoke with Laura Carlsen, coordinator of Global Solidarity and Learning, with Just Associates in Mexico City. Here she discusses the background and positions of both top candidates and the possibility that if Claudia Sheinbaum wins, she could depart from the policies of her mentor Mexico’s popular outgoing president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who has favored aggressive development of fossil fuels and a leading role for the military.

Listen to Scott Harris’ in-depth interview with Laura Carlsen at Between the Lines

For more information, visit JustAssociates.org and Just Associates Meso America Program.

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