Claudia Sheinbaum, the first woman president of Mexico

2024-06-03 16:16:00, Kosova & Bota CNA

Official preliminary voting results released early Monday show ruling party candidate Claudia Sheinbaum is the winner of Mexico's presidential election, becoming the country's first female leader. The former mayor ran under the banner of the Morena party, with promises to further President Andrés Manuel López Obrador's policies.

The head of the National Institute of Elections in Mexico said that according to preliminary calculations in the elections, the candidate Claudia Sheinbaum received between 58.3% and 60.7% of the votes.

"With this decision, the Mexican people enable the continuation of the progress of President Obrador's program (that the law applies to everyone and no one is above the law). For the first time in 200 years, Mexico has a woman president of the republic," said the president-elect of Mexico, Claudia Sheinbaum.

In a country of nearly 100 million Catholics, Mrs. Sheinbaum will also be the first president in Mexico's history of Jewish descent.

Ms. Sheinbaum owes much of her popularity to the outgoing president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador. Mr. Obrador, who belongs to the left line like the president-elect, has been her mentor and 60 percent of the population approves of his work.

Presidential elections in Mexico/ 99 million voters, a woman favorite for head of state
June 2, 10:10

Preliminary results show that the Morena Party won the majority of seats in both houses of Congress. Her opponent, Xóchitl Gálvez, an opposition senator and business representative of indigenous origin, received between 26.6% and 28.6% of the vote.

"It's time to leave the campaigns behind and enter a phase of reconciliation where what unites us as residents of Mexico takes precedence. We cannot ignore the fact that this was an uneven process, characterized by the intervention of the president and the use of social programs. This was also the most violent electoral process in the history of our country", said Xóchitl Gálvez, candidate for president of Mexico.

Hours before polls opened on Sunday, a local candidate was killed in a Mexican state, authorities said, one of at least 25 other political candidates killed during the current campaign, according to official records.

More than 450,000 people have been killed and tens of thousands have gone missing since 2006, when the government deployed the military to fight drug trafficking.

Ms. Sheinbaum has vowed to continue President López Obrador's controversial "hugs not bullets" strategy to fight crime at its roots./ VOA