MONITORING (SW) – The 62-year-old climate scientist and former mayor of Mexico City Claudia Sheinbaum is set to serve a six-year term, ending in 2030.
Sheinbaum took the oath of office in front of parliamentarians, as her supporters chanted “President! President!” and “Long live Mexico!” “Now is the time of transformation, now is the time of women,” Sheinbaum said.
She enters office with her party holding supermajority control in the legislature’s lower house, and nearly the same in the Senate, and immediately sought to reassure investors, saying that investments will be safe in Mexico, reported Al Jazeera.
Sheinbaum will need to contend with some last-minute moves by Lopez Obrador, namely a controversial judicial overhaul that will see federal judges – including those on the Supreme Court – elected by popular vote. The constitutional change has roiled both advocates of judicial independence and investors.
The incoming president will also be navigating a US election on November 5 that could shift relations with Mexico’s top trading partner.
Later in November, she will deliver her government’s first budget, which will likely give clues as to whether Sheinbaum can make good on commitments to reduce the country’s widening fiscal deficit while maintaining popular welfare spending and costly crime-fighting initiatives.
That task comes at a time when Mexico’s economy, the second-largest in Latin America, is forecasted to have only modest growth.
