Mexico’s projected presidential winner Claudia Sheinbaum will become the first woman president in the country’s 200-year history.
“I will become the first woman president of Mexico,” Sheinbaum said with a smile, speaking at a downtown hotel shortly after electoral authorities announced a statistical sample showed she held an irreversible lead. “I don’t make it alone. We’ve all made it, with our heroines who gave us our homeland, with our mothers, our daughters and our granddaughters.”
“We have demonstrated that Mexico is a democratic country with peaceful elections,” she said.
The National Electoral Institute’s president said Sheinbaum had between 58.3% and 60.7% of the vote, according to a statistical sample. Opposition candidate Xóchitl Gálvez had between 26.6% and 28.6% of the vote and Jorge Álvarez Máynez had between 9.9% and 10.8% of the vote. Sheinbaum’s Morena party was also projected to hold majorities in both chambers of Congress.
The climate scientist and former Mexico City mayor said that her two competitors had called her and conceded her victory.
The official preliminary count put Sheinbaum 28 points ahead of Gálvez with nearly 50% of polling places reporting.
The fact that the two leading candidates were women had left little doubt that Mexico would make history Sunday. Sheinbaum will also be the first person from a Jewish background to lead the overwhelmingly Catholic country.
She will start her six-year term Oct. 1. Mexico’s constitution does not allow reelection.