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The day Mexico appointed its first president

The succession has ended. From this October 1, new hands will direct the course of Mexico. For the first time in its history, a woman will take command of the National Palace, after 65 men among civilians and military. The first President of the Republic, Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo, received the presidency this Tuesday in the Chamber of Deputies amid shouts and applause. She takes over from another woman like her, political pioneer Iphigenia Martínez.

Martínez’s 94 years prevented her from moving around freely and, attached to an oxygen cylinder, she could barely speak, but the symbol was clear: a new era was born in Mexico, but the heir to a decades-long conflict. Which included other women like Martínez. paved the way. Sheinbaum has reiterated this since winning the election in a landslide on June 2: “I’m not alone here, we’re all here.” There was another privileged witness in San Lazaro: the former President of the Republic, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, Sheinbaum’s mentor and his predecessor, not only in office, but as leader of Morena, the party he had created 10 years earlier and Which brought both of them to power.

The shadow of Lopez Obrador, a politician who has been an active part of Mexican life for the past four decades, is long. The big question raised by his critics is how much the ubiquity of the old leader, a wild, charismatic political animal with an acquired taste for the spotlight, will affect Sheinbaum. He had already anticipated that there would be continuity, but with some changes. The coming years would establish the meaning of that phrase.

After San Lazaro, Sheinbaum held his first mass bath as president in the Zócalo, which was so crowded that police had to close the entrance before the ceremony could begin. Apart from representatives of 105 countries and 23 international organizations, dozens of indigenous people also played an important role in the decoration. The President presented 100 points that she would try to follow in her government and bid farewell by promising to “always defend Mexico” and to “praise love, truth, honesty and fraternity.” The country already has its own President. Now it is their turn to rule.