On Friday, March 1, the Mexican Left occupied not only Latin America's biggest square, Mexico City's Zocalo, but also all the adjacent streets. The occasion: the launch of Claudia Sheinbaum's campaign for the June 2 presidential election. Thousands of activists from the National Regeneration Movement (Movimiento Regeneración Nacional, or MORENA), the political party founded by Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (known as AMLO) in 2011, waited several hours before being able to hear, mostly through a giant screen, the woman everyone now calls "Claudia," who was greeted with shouts of "la presidenta," Spanish for "(female) president."
Brenda Suarez, with a "Claudia" cap on her forehead and a "MORENA" flag in her hand, drove three hours to attend what she considers "a historic moment: cheering on our future president, who is, moreover, a scientist! My two daughters already see Claudia as a role model," said the 43-year-old shopkeeper, who has been a MORENA activist for 10 years.
Alongside her, Olinca Perez, a teacher and the leader of a housing rights collective, agreed: "We're extremely proud to have a female candidate in a macho country like Mexico. Claudia did an excellent job as the mayor of Mexico City and she will be a great president." Sheinbaum, who was previously the Head of Government of Mexico City – a position in charge of the city like a mayor, but with the rank of a governor of a state, given Mexico City's size – left office in June 2023 with a record approval rating of 68% in the capital, which should enable the left to retain its hold, uninterrupted since 1997, on this metropolis.
Mexico guaranteed a female president
AMLO's term of office ends on December 1, and the Mexican Constitution prohibits re-election, meaning that Mexico is now guaranteed a female president: Sheinbaum will face another woman, Xochitl Galvez, the opposition candidate, who also launched her campaign this Friday, but far from Mexico City, in the state of Guanajuato, one of the strongholds of her right-wing National Action Party (Partido Acción Nacional, or PAN).
Sheinbaum, 61, has had a big lead over her rival in all the polls for months. The current president's approval rating, around 60%, thus seems to be transferring in its entirety to his heir, who promises to continue "the transformation of Mexico." She has reprised most of the slogans that were created during AMLO's 2018 presidential campaign. Indeed, the phrase "for the good of all, the poor first" appeared several times in her speech, which she ended with the famous "do not lie, do not steal, and do not betray the people" catchphrase, so often repeated by the president.
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